LARS ELLING | Dreams of Reason

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11 April - 09 May 2026
Everard Read at Leeu Estates
Dassenberg Road, Franschhoek

OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, 11 April 2026 at 11AM.

Everard Read Franschhoek is proud to present a new solo exhibition by Lars Elling entitled Dreams of Reason.

Please join us and the artist to celebrate the opening on Saturday the 11^th of April at 11:00. We are honoured to have Dr Paul Cluver giving the opening address at 11:30.

Lars Elling (b.1966, Norway) is a highly acclaimed contemporary painter and author. He currently lives and works between both South Africa and Norway. He holds an MA from the Bergen Academy of Fine Arts. His work can be found in several prestigious institutions such as the National Gallery of Norway, Trondheim Art Museum, the EU Commission and the Norwegian Arts Council. He has had solo exhibitions across Europe, in the UK, China and the USA. This will be his first South African solo exhibition.

‘Dreams of Reason Produce Monsters’, is the title of an etching by the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746-1828). I’ve often wondered about that sentence; In Spanish, sueño means both ‘sleep’ and ‘dream.’ Is Goya saying, ‘watch out for sleep, because your dreams might scare you’, akin to something like  Nightmare on Elm Street, or rather, is he saying ‘do not dream while awake, because your rationality will produce horrors’, more in line with ideas of world domination and destruction. I wonder...

So where do they come from, these images? The images that eventually turn into paintings. If night is a dreamscape on the open sea, then daylight  should constitute the terra firma of rationality. To me, the unsure footing of the shallow shoreline, half asleep, half awake, is the most fertile ground for the mind’s images. Not the surrealism of dreams, where horses can fly, but the, half lucid imagery that belongs neither to night nor day. 

The source material for my practice as a whole can perhaps be divided into three equal parts:

1. Memories. Especially those which are only half remembered, the ones with the fuzzy edges. Only when they are slightly out of focus, can I reproduce them with perfect clarity.
2. Stories. Both my own and yours. As a novelist, I pick up on everything. Some stories become text, some become shapes and colour. Again, the edges are always fuzzy. I think a good painting needs to be both a suggestion and a statement, the bearer of a secret.
3. Surroundings. The light here in Elgin (South Africa) has changed my colour scheme from the dark grey greens of my native Norway environment to the blues and ochres of the Western Cape. But at their core, they remain the same, but different temperaments emerge with different surroundings.

I think Goya gets it. We are sense and we are sensibility and the most interesting images emerge when we find ourselves in states of lucid dreaming." - Lars Elling, 2026

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10:00 - 17:00

If you are looking to add to your collection and you are unable to make it to our gallery during operating hours, please contact us via fgallery@everard.co.za to make an appointment outside of these hours.