Jonas Rosenquist’s På andra sidan ön (On the Other Side of the Island) captures the last minutes of a Swedish summer evening, as the sun slips behind the low, dark islands of the archipelago. A band of molten orange burns along the horizon and spills across the water, while the sky above dissolves into a shimmering field of blues, greens and pale yellows.
The painting is built from countless short, thick dabs of paint laid side by side, each one a small fleck of light. Seen up close they read as pure colour—turquoise next to ochre, rose beside sky blue—but from a distance they fuse into the flickering surface of the sea and the slow fading of the evening sky. The impasto catches real light on the canvas, so the water seems to move as the viewer does.
In the foreground, the rocky shore lies already in shadow: worn granite, lichen and low heather rendered in deep blues, greys and greens, with a few warm sparks of autumn colour. Two slender young trees rise from the rocks, their thin branches and sparse leaves drawn against the glowing water like quiet witnesses to the end of the day.
På andra sidan ön is about the moment when the light is almost gone and everything becomes still. It is a familiar view for anyone who has spent summers in the Swedish archipelago—the other side of the island, where you walk in the evening to watch the sun go down—and Rosenquist turns it into a vibrant, almost musical meditation on light, water and stone.
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