Danish Pop Arts Grandmaster. There are few who own the same patience, technology and talent as Ole Ahlberg - and with his sense of beautiful dressed ladies, combined with items from, among others, Hergé Tintin, he has secured recognition and fame beyond Denmark's borders.
Technically, Ahlberg is in full control, he paints narrowly and precisely to the smallest detail; Nevertheless, Tintin appears perfectly cartoonish and sincere awkward in the adult universe. Ahlberg simply melts two completely different values together without overconstructing it.
Ole Ahlberg has created a universe where the baroque vanitas symbols, such as peeled lemons, hourglasses, unlit candles, and skulls, have been replaced by a more contemporary repertoire. The most obvious difference being between things and people from the “real” world contra comic strip characters. His many scantily-clad women, swans, porcelain objects, and clouds are painted in a very convincing life-like manner while the comic strip characters, mainly taken from Hergés’ Tintin, are painted with a clearly defined outline that makes them appear flat on the canvas. A difference that is almost tangible.
If Ole Ahlberg’s principles of composition have changed, his motifs have essentially stayed the same: it is mostly still about eroticism. Being a very sophisticated artist, he never allows the pictures to become too lewd or carnal in nature, but somehow he finds a way to get the viewer, to a great extent, to create the suggestive stories. Eroticism is usually also just a pretext for political commentary and a deeper epistemological investigation. In this respect Ole Ahlberg prefers the black humor and mysteriousness of Magritte than the theatricality and surrealism of Dalí.
Before the popular breakthrough, Ole Ahlberg was best known as (80er) surrealist, and as part of the art association "Pas Partout" he already made strong works at the time - and they were hard to get hold of. Today you have to think and act quickly if you want to own one of the new original works.