Compelling Faces in Art - Odd Nerdrum, Kjærlighetspar (The Love Couple), 1976.

In the early 1970s, Odd Nerdrum was one of the leading figures to revolt against the dogma of Modernism. Focusing on contemporary social conflicts, with sympathy for the vulnerability of the individual, he created motives that made him one of the most mentioned and disparaged painters of Scandinavia. 

In Kjærlighetspar (The Love Couple), 1976, we see anecdote and narrative, that is allegorical in nature and appears to be done so with a sense of the apocalyptic. 

I imagine the first way to approach this work would be through the subject of love; that unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding. Does love consign these two to hell or to paradise? Does it illuminate and lead the way? 

Often I am helplessly confronted by a picture... filled with suspense. It is a genuine struggle and challenge. And obviously, from a personal point of view, the principal challenge is a personal challenge. And before I know it, all these puzzle pieces add up to something pretty amazing: to fail to love it is not to exist at all.