And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.
The Book of Revelation 6:2

“The apocalypse de St. Sever depicts how blood and fire rain upon the earth. The end of time is near – Angels blow their gilded trumpets – Satan walks the earth like a roaring lion. The White Horseman comes with his bow and victor’s crown, the Red Horseman took peace from earth, the Black Horseman came with famine – Death came on a sallow horse with the underworld in his entourage.” Fredrik Söderberg, 2017

Fredrik Söderberg (b. 1972) presents a series of new paintings, originating from the Romanesque illuminated manuscript Apocalypse of Saint-Sever. This manuscript was created by monks in the monastery of Saint-Sever in France in the 11th century, where parts of it are displayed at the Musée des Jacobins.

Söderberg has turned the garish colours from the original images from the Book of Revelations into a more consistent and restrained tone. The medieval viewer saw colour and composition in a different way and could interpret the intensity of the colours as symbols for good and evil. Ideas of transcendent contemplation runs from the workshop in the abbey to Söderberg’s contemporary paraphrase, that also can be viewed as meditation images or paintings for prayer.