Viggo Mortensen

Horses in a blizzardViggo Peter Mortensen, although probably best known as an actor for his role as Aragorn in the Lord of The Rings trilogy is quite possibly the most talented man I know. Not only is the award-winning actor fluent in other three languages (he claims to be fluent in English, Danish and Spanish but only conversant in French, Italian and I forget the rest!) but he is also an accomplished poet, singer, painter, musician, author and, of course, photographer.

 

Mortensen was born on Oct. 20, 1958 in New York City to an American mother and Danish father.

 

As a youngster, the family lived in Denmark, and Venezuela, before settling in Argentina. When Mortensen was 11, his parents divorced and Mortensen moved back to Denmark with his father for a while before they eventually headed back to America.  Amazingly,  despite the long list of accomplishments on his resume now, after high school, he returned to Denmark and drove trucks for a living.

It was not until he finally settled in America that he began an acting career, and while this is what he is most famous for,  his photographic talent deserves to be acknowledged too.

His photography and paintings have been featured in galleries throughout the world including America, Cuba, Denmark, and New Zealand. His first exhibit of photographs and paintings took place in 2000, at the Robert Mann Gallery in New York City.

Nature is a common thread in all of his work,  and his photography often communicates the raw yet fragile, the wild and the tamed of the world we live in.

 

Mortensen has said he believes photography is a focusing on detail. He shoots black and white and colour photos that are taken deliberately or shot on the run. Many of them feature the simple moments in life, as forMortensen , photography seems to be his true way of recording the everyday details that we all experience. This makes his natural photographs easy for the common man to relate to.

Mortensen’s paintings are often abstract and he likes to incorporate fragments of his poetry in them.  This just compounds the haunting feeling behind much of his work.  Interestingly his paintings and photographs often mirror each other, sharing tone, composition and focus, making me wonder ifMortensen is a photographer who tries to capture reflections in the world in front of the camera images of what he sees in his creative mind.

There is a reluctance to reveal, in his photography, and his images shows hints of subjects, often out of focus or obscured, during the shot or afterwards, by words or other artistic elements.  The layered result is complex and compelling and in keeping with his multi-faceted creative talent.

As one reviewer says, "Viggo Mortensen melds his acutely sensitive ability to intertwine words, paintings and photography into one lyrical conceptual landscape."