'Maybe it's right there'   Lasse Netterstrøm (1980) is a self-taught, and humble, Copenhagen artist hailing from an architecture background. Lasse completed his study at The School of Architecture, (The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts) where he graduated with a masters degree. As Lasse desribes it himself he is dealing with making ideas, thought, visions and rambling into tangible objects. Coming from a background in graffiti and street art Lasse evolved into his more abstract works on canvas. Working in greytones and colour Lasse's work is based on different themes, experimentations and structural problem solving. For the exhibition 'Maybe it's right there', Lasse is showing his work for the first time in the Netherlands. Are you looking forward to showing your works in Amsterdam? I couldn't be more excited. I've been to Amsterdam a few times before and I dig the vibe of the city and its people. To have the opportunity to show my work there is just great and a little nerve-wracking at the same time. I'm showing a somewhat new direction in my work and it's gonna be exciting to see how people down there will react to it. I'm really looking forward to meet some good people, hopefully get to paint a bit and just be open to whatever comes my way. I'll be painting a big wall at a place called 'De Hallen' during my stay also and that's always fun, so I'm psyched. New places always inspire me and therefore my work and I'm pretty sure my stay in Amsterdam will do too. Thanks to Nalden I also got a great hookup at the Citizen M hotel, so i'm really psyched on the exhibition! Being a self taught artist, how did your art career evolve itself? Graffiti was the starter for me (like so many others). I was massively into graffiti during the 90's and then I started playing aroudn with different mediums like handmade stickers, posters, stencils and so on around 2001. That's when I started working under the moniker of 'Silencio' and that project started up. After a few years I got invited to do some canvases for a big group show for Copenhagen Cruise in 2004 and then it's just been growing ever since. Though I've mellowed the streetwork out quite a bit now, I guess it's all a part of what I'm doing now anyhow. To me it looks like a logical evolution, though it may look nothing like it. How does it work now when you are painting? What happens when you pick up a blank canvas? I normally start out really loose with a feeling, a sentence or some doodles. Some main moves are laid down and I start building on that. Sometimes the composition and imagery is all up in my head and is just waiting to get out and at times I have to sit and stare and contemplate on every detail before getting anywhere. Normally a painting will make some twists and turns before getting completed. At times it doesn't even feel like I'm totally in control. But it's never uneventful and that's whats great about it. Your abstract work has a strong combination of greytones and colour at the same time. How do you make these two opposites fit together? It's always fun to hear how people see ones work. My work is based on different themes, experimentations and structural problem solving. I have elements that I try to mix and evolve in each painting, depending on the thought behind it and where the process takes it. I don't see it as a battle. It might not always even be intentional. I just think that my kind of image vocabulary, comes through strongly in a mix of greys and colours. How would you describe your own work? Normally I'll let people make up their own minds on my work. But it's mainly abstract, as you said yourself. I do have some photographic images in my silkscreened works and I'm starting to show photos as a part of my visual universe. I tend to explore structures and symbols a lot. An example is the net pattern which symbolizes an experimentation on a self regulating structure. I'm really interested in working with different themes or 'problems' and dealing with them in my own abstract language. Hopefully that speaks to people on some level, but I don't think it's important if they get my motives or not. How much of your work would somebody be able to relate as Scandinavian art or influence? As a trained architect, former graffitibomber, streetartist and now mainly painter I'd say that I'm influenced from all over. Of course we're all products of our environment on some level, but I've travelled a lot and I've got inputs from a whole bunch of places and things. Coming from the north, I'd say the seasons is something that influence me, and everybody else up here as well. Maybe that creates some kind of scandinavian sensibility, but I won't elaborate to much on that though, haha. Also getting schooled as an architect, you get a strong awareness of that part of the history. That definitely have influenced me in a lot of ways, but I can't tell you if that's a good thing or not. Official opening: Friday 23th of April YOUR:OWN Gallery Oude Waal 35 18:00/20.30

Agenda: 26/03: Gijs Kast (NL) 09/04: The Things We Are (NL) 23/04: Lasse Netterstrom (DK) 06/05: Ed Templeton (USA) 21/05: Panik (UK) 04/06: Stefan Glerum (NL) 18/06: Lennard Schuurmans (NL) 02/07: Lil' Shy (FR) 16/07: Joe Holbrook (UK)            (closing exhibition) Contact: YOUR:OWN Oude Waal 35 1011 CC Amsterdam info@your-own.nl Opening times: Monday - friday 10.00 -18.00