Thomas Urbye’s artistic sensibility began long before his artistic professional practice. Works by highly accomplished artists surrounded him during his early years, which allowed a well-matured eye and an advanced sense of understanding of artistic composition and quality to evolve. Later, he trained as an artist with Sverre Schyberg-Olsen for 2 years.  Urbye has, through his 14 years of artistic practice, created a language of his own. Through attentive study and contemplation he combines oils and texture to create his paintings. 

 

Urbye’s works echo the legacy of Abstract Expressionism. Similar to that of Rothko, Urbye seeks to achieve a sense of visual vibration. He spends hours contemplating his next move, before physically engaging with his mediums, and when he does, the movements are executed with a determined hand. 

 

At a first glance, Urbye’s work achieves a sense of incredible beauty and determination through his careful choice of both composition and subdued palette. However, the subject matter goes deeper. His artworks poses a challenge to the viewer, asking the interpreter to go beyond their ‘usual’ frames of interpretation, expanding them, pushing the walls of their own individual circle. 

 

The paintings invites for dialogue in an unrestricted language of carefully selected forms, colour, and combinations. Accepting the invitation, we are taken away from our usual worldly known forms and drawn into a world of visual exaltation, where extreme contrasts reconcile and become one, in an ideal collaboration. His exploration of dualism is evident. Not only does he give contrasts a space to exist, he brings them to life. Perhaps it is appropriate to propose and even grant Urbye’s work; presence, rather than presentation, as the juxtaposition between significant opposing universal qualities is accepted and demonstrated as harmonic expressions by Urbye. 

 

Urbye combines the vulnerable and the delicate in his limited palette with the raw and intense in his use of texture. The works inhabit an infinite spectre of emotion, and perhaps it is applicable to say he finds a ‘solution’ to an idea of ‘conflicting’ themes by embracing them with a deep understanding and calm. His lines and composition do not convey conflicting contrasts, but rather accepting them with determination, portraying a span of life, as Urbye explains himself. 

 

Urbye incorporates and embraces risk as a discipline, though mindfully executing thorough observations throughout the process of creating. His depth and emotional span not only as an artist, but also as a human being seeks and validates life´s ‘richness’ in the many facets it presents itself and so I believe Urbye’s knowledge and fascination with life and human relations can be felt in the presence of his work. His paintings activate a presence by not trying to predict a specific thought, but are free from it. The presence of the artworks I believe activates the presence of the viewer, as Kipling suggests in his poem “If”, “to think without the thought as a goal”, and by doing so experiencing a more magical world with continual renewal. In all doubt there is a sense of calm and assertion and perhaps Urbye’s paintings askes us to be patient, as it, through his work, will come soon.