Arvid Hedin's work hinges upon the difference he sets up between studio based painting, and painting done 'in nature'. His landscapes fall into two groups; small portable canvases which are produced in one outdoor sitting in the countryside, and large paintings produced in the studio which originate from the smaller works. The strongly coloured pieces remind you at once of the thickly handled paintings of the expressionists and the colour manipulation possible within computer programs like Photoshop.
Arvid Hedin hints at the dualities that painting has set up which facilitate the interiority of the artist and the viewer, or the ability for art to create meaningful experiences through some access to a real moment. These constructions come starkly to the for when it becomes clear that the relation that the studio painting has with the outdoor work is not the same as the one
between sketch and finished work. The studio works present something closer to a painting of a painting capturing brush marks as well as subject matter.
The landscapes are usually dominated by tree trunks, playing the link between the Romantic symbolism of the forest and the gesture of the painted line. But Arvid Hedin's landscapes do not open out onto a grand scene with the reflecting comfort of a single vanishing point. Theirs is more often the close-edited hand held camera view from The Blair Witch Project, with few glimpses of sky or a recognizable horizon.
