Esra Røise

I find it extremely hard to draw hair. Esra Røise seems to manage this perfectly.

Rotten- A short story.

This old man on the 3rd floor, was just like any other sulky old man though he himself would disagree.
He would make fresh coffee in the mornings and wait until it got cold while he solved the newspaper's crossword puzzle.
"Decomposed!" he read out loud. He had stopped smoking years ago but his fingers still had yellow nicotine stains.
After tapping his fingers on the table he grabbed his old Parker pen and started to write "R-o-t-t-e-n" horizontally. It sure explains my situation. Why can't we use it for people anyway? Isn't that what we're doing; rotting? Why use "aging" or "getting old". We look like a rotten apple and sure feel like one too!

He was thinking about the ducks in the park and wondering if Hilda would be there with her granddaughter. She was a nice piece. She was a widow of an ex German officer and had an elegancy and polite manner that would make a man want to straighten his hat and collar each time he saw her.

It was a gloomy day. If it hadn't been for the rheumatic twinges that grappled his knees, he could have been talking to her and make her laugh with his campus stories. He had many stories but somehow always ended up repeating the same ones, adding new details each time. Hilda would never interrupt him and would always nod with a smile. Today, he was stuck in the apartment.

Just as he was sipping from his ice cold coffee, he got startled by the phone ringing. He frowned as he was quite sure about the ringer since he had been regularly interrupted for the last couple of days. Despite his scepticism,he got up and reached for the phone. "Yeah?" He said and paused. There was a lot of muttering and undefinable noise. Eventually, somebody managed to get their nerves together and said, "Hello,do you have a small dick?" [laughter in the background followed by a click]
Those damn kids he thought. Had I been a little younger I would have showed them! Messing with me like that.

He hung up the phone and walked towards the window mumbling something like, "Hilda...the ducks...damn knees."


E.Y

Untitled.

That year, it was one dissappointment after the other and our patience was constantly put through the test. The weak ones fell quicker apart while the strong ones held on tight like a fly in a storm. The good news couldn't make up for the bad ones. The belief in the holyness of tomorrow were ruined by cluttered dreams and sad weddings. There was no difference in day and night and the worst part was when everyone would say, "It's all going to be allright".

E.Y

Conceptual art

It's like an epidemic; fashion, trends, art. Many of us follow what we claim to be 'the normal thing to do'. But just like I refuse to wear harem pants and buy an Iphone because it's fashion, I find it hard to accept the elements of "conceptual art" as art.
I am not the person to judge what is claimed to be art or how art should be evaluated, but art to me represents beauty and the admiration for the given effort and time, as well as the artists' sharing of deep thought or a story that lies beneath.

In conceptual art, the idea and concept is the main focus. The worshippers of conceptual art are impressed by the simplicity and creativity that requires no Picasso skills. In that sense, we can all be artists. But does all art deserve to hang on our walls? Shouldn't we be a little critical?

In a section for modern art, stains of coffee cups are being framed and admired as art whilst I stumble upon blocks of concrete, amazed to find a lable beside it with a name on. There seems to be a form of self-deception and pretensiousness where many stand in front of a conceptual art piece and admire it because it is the expected. We stand in front of a black and white TV screen for hours, looking at a man move his foot from side to side. But hey, if this museum is showing it, it must be something, right?
It's a situation where it's not just the emperor that has no clothes, but everyone.

While examining 4 calender sheets, glued together and framed, 2 floors above a museum attendant is pointing at a Monet painting and explaining why he used 7 years to complete a painting, layer by layer.

E.Y

Museum feeling

Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo


MoMA, New York


The Metropolitan, New York

Words and their functions

The rainy weather encouraged me to do some brainstorming. Ideas were lined up in my head,occasionally overlapping one and other. It was hard trying to grasp the words from this hurricane of thoughts and safely place them on a piece of paper. How many weeks had it been since I saw my own handwriting?

There was too much that had caught my attention. I wrote one word, then scribbled and tried to find a better word. We were older now, weren't we? Maybe a synonym would look fancier.

I wrote, scribbled and wrote again until the whole page turned into a blob of ink. It just wasn't my day. I took the paper, curled it until it turned into a ball in my fist and threw it into the dust bin.

E.Y.