Jessi Rask is a Danish sculptor and painter who fascinates us with her own style and personality.
Towards evening we arrive at Jessi Rask’s beautiful residence in Cadaqués where she greets us with a familiar welcoming smile. Before starting the interview, we take a walk through the garden where we can contemplate her sculptures among the green of the trees and the sky that, although the day was cloudy, we are left speechless before so much beauty.
In the words of Àlex Mitrani, Doctor in Contemporary History:
“When Jessi Rask paints in Cadaqués, the sea literally enters her studio. Her paintings invite us to immerse ourselves in a ductile, mobile, at times seductive, at times enigmatic environment…”.
The artist has been living for more than 30 years in this Alt Empordá village, which was Salvador Dalí’s home until his death. Jessi Rask opens the doors of Angelroc, her place of residence, a house overlooking the sea from where she has no shortage of inspiration for her creations.
When did your fascination with art begin?
When I was a little girl, about 6 years old, I saw a man with a cane on television, dressed in a very elegant way. The next day at school our teacher gave each student a piece of clay to create a piece. Most of the children made ashtrays and easy ornaments to give to their parents. I made that elegant man from the television, which had fascinated me. I still have this sculpture.
You move between painting and sculpture: When you create a painting or a sculpture, is your inner world the same, or do you connect with a different world?
It’s a bit different. I have met very few artists who are painters and sculptors at the same time. In my case, I can spend some time creating sculpture in the studio and then feel the need for colours. For most of my life I have worked with oils.
When I was 15 years old I visited a museum in Copenhagen where there was an exhibition of Pablo Picasso. At that time I couldn’t find painting materials and oils easily, so I took material I found at my school and started painting totally inspired by Picasso’s cubism and his blue period. I’m talking about the 60s…
Had you already visited Spain?
I visited Spain for the first time when I was 18 and met Salvador Dalí in Barcelona. At that time, I was a model for Jonny Casablanca ‘s agency in Paris and we were invited by a Barcelona modelling agency to work and we took the opportunity to visit the city. After one of the photo shoots, we went to a reception at the hotel where Dalí was staying in a suite, everyone wanted to talk to him. Salvador Dalí came up to me, I withdrew from the group and we began to talk about art, quietly, that’s how it was in our first meeting. My sister already knew Salvador Dalí as she is a photographer.
When did you fall in love with this corner of the world called Cadaqués and with Angelroc?
For a while I was looking for a house that was special. In Saint-Tropez I visited about 60 houses and only one was to my liking. At that moment the memory of Cadaqués came back to me and I decided to put a deposit on the house in Saint-Tropez and spend a short holiday here. There were very few houses for sale and we rented for a few days this place where we are now. What I felt when I sat here and looked at the sea, I had never felt anywhere else. So I left the house in Saint-Tropez and have been here for the last 35 years.
How do you define your connection with your Art? There are artists who find the process of creating difficult, exhausting while others define it as a meditation or a happy moment… What is it like for you?
For me sculpture is more relaxing than painting. Sculpture … is not forced. But painting is more difficult, because I need to think and plan. I can do up to 8 layers, so I find it more tiring.
So the relationship with your sculpture is not based on a preconceived idea?
The process of creation when I start a sculpture is a physical and poetic relationship with the material, the same thing happens to me as it did to Michelangelo, the sculpture emerges from the material. It is a dialogue between me and the material.
I have worked for many years with an important Danish sculptor, he draws many sketches before sculpting, but I don’t draw. My creation goes directly from my imagination to the material. My communication with my sculptures has a sensual and poetic connection and is not rational or planned.
Does that happen to you with painting?
No. It’s not the same. It’s more planned in my figurative painting, whereas it’s more sensorial in my abstract paintings. I don’t focus on a particular style.
Who or what inspires you, what are the periods in history or the people who inspire you, or do you only draw inspiration from your inner world?
For example, in sculpture it’s more your inner world, but when I was a child I was and still am inspired by the sculptures of Henry Moore, Jean Arp… This would be, according to François Sthaly, who taught me in Italy to sculpt in marble, my family of sculptors. Here in Cadaqués we have a sculpture by François Sthaly called The Fourth Wind.
There are artists who look to the past when creating and others have their vision in the future, how do you see yourself as an artist?
My favourite period is the Renaissance, but I don’t stick to one period; I like to nourish myself both from the past and discover the future and capture it with my art.
Both your children have also chosen the world of art in their professions. Your son John is a professional magician and your daughter Jessica is a director of photography, how have your children inspired you in your artistic world?
I have had a fascination with angels since I was a child and I collect them. When Jessica was little she made a drawing at school and in that drawing she depicted an angel with a mermaid’s tail and she gave it to me as a present (I still have that drawing). That drawing inspired my sculpture called Mermaid Angel. I also have some sculptures in which I represent my daughter Jessica as a little girl, these sculptures I have in Switzerland.
John is different, John inspires me the world of magic and I use painting to capture the magical universe that my son represents.
What is your favourite element in nature?
Water.
What would you have done if you hadn’t been an artist?
I would have been an architect.
I don’t know why we expected that answer, given that sculptors tend to be fascinated by architecture. As we said goodbye, we left Cadaqués with the feeling that we had learned a lot and met a magnetic person.
