he exhibition at the Perus Café/ Puppet Museum is about creating visual art out of pure chaos.

The artist is Norwegian Finn Cato Ophus Andersen. Over the years, he defied conformity. Anderson did not attend any art school and never underwent formal training simply because that goes against his grain. Art schools and other formal seats of learning and systems of promotion of arts did not satisfy the artist’s urge to be original, creative and rebellious. Anderson did not subscribe to pasting mirror images as per the conventional definition of visual arts.

He belongs to the art movements that reject and challenge the divisions and differentiations that define various art forms and movements. Instead of joining any of the institutions, he decided to live in a van opposite a formal academic institution of the arts. It was a loud statement that called for a distance from the established principles of art which lay moribund in their conformity.

Anderson calls himself a visjonalisme, which is Norwegian for visualism. Even in English, this sounds like a word coined for the practice of a kind of art that is the forte of this artist. It appears that the rebellion has gone so far that words have to be coined to understand and describe his artistic process. Label it visualism or the practitioner a visualalist, it is all new as it defies the conventions of standard art forms that one is acquainted or familiar with. New forms require a new vocabulary to describe and discuss them. This is the most challenging aspect of the work under review. Defiance of conventions, leads one into unchartered waters where the comprehension is without any blinkers of guidance. The freedom comes at the cost of not fully registering the impact of the visual experience.

The artist has spent decades in the wilderness of the art world, breaking down its barriers. For years, he lived in Berlin, which he calls the city that oozes arts. In 1989, he participated in pulling down the Berlin Wall.

Visjonalisme is a process where non-melting, butter, oil or ketchup is placed on a non-burning paper and placed on fire. The melting process is managed by stirring or shaking till some figurine or figure-like contours begin to form. This is then rung through a digital process via the computer. The image is then copied on art paper and manipulated not in a technical process but through artistic sensitivity which Anderson insists on calling akin to an analogue. The emerging fluid form is then framed under non-reflective glass.

The visual experience is paramount. This is what attracts one to the images that were framed and hung to be lived visually. The basic truth is that the images and the paintings are attractive and contain hold and captivate the gaze. This raw reaction lays the foundation of a more academic underpinning of the art form in its entirety.

Anderson has spent decades in the wilderness of the art world, breaking down many barriers. For years, he lived in Berlin, which he calls describes as a city that oozes arts. In 1989, he participated in pulling down the Berlin Wall. It may have been a strangely fulfilling experience because the division imposed on Europe since the World War II was coming to an end. It was being erased. The German sentiment must have been most focused and thus a liberating one.

The artist was also, for years, associated with the Punk Movement. He was particularly inspired by music that it created. The fluidity of music and the non-observance of rules in tangibility rhymed with his perception of himself. He wanted to bring the same fluidity to the visual arts as well. The image is thus not fully formed but is forced to take a shape. The contours are recognised but not quite. This is Anderson’s answer to his interaction with chaos, an intricate interplay of fixity and fluidity that is so very characteristic of music.

The writer is a culture critic based in Lahore