Image: Silkeborg Bad
‘Himmelske Betragtninger’ is now a last-chance exhibition, with its final opening day set for Sunday 27 September. The exhibition runs from 6 June to 27 September 2026.
The presentation includes more than 50 paintings by the self-taught artist Henrik Martensen. It is the first major solo exhibition to present his work in concentrated form, bringing his painterly universe together in a single exhibition.
A recurring subject in Martensen’s work is the small human figure set within a vast space. As a painter, he works in line with a newer tendency in which individual visual artists and art photographers in Denmark and abroad seek a hyperrealist expression. His fascination with natural phenomena is processed through emphasis and omission, so that each image ultimately stands as an independent statement.
Martensen draws inspiration from Danish landscapes, particularly coastal landscapes and other places with wide horizons and high skies. These open spaces allow people to experience themselves in proportion to nature’s vastness, as well as to life and death. He describes the power of nature as magical, spiritual and divine, and identifies it as the force that prompts and inspires him to make his images.
The exhibition also presents the short film ‘The World is Turning’, which shows a markedly different side of Martensen as a visual and sound artist. A public tour of ‘Himmelske betragtninger’ is scheduled for Saturday 26 September at 14:00.
