This is kind of a sister painting to Stugu, that I posted yesterday. They are both the same size, and of similar composition – I thought it was fun to try to make two related paintings for once. They hang beside each other in the exhibition.
Norrbyskär has a long history, most of the houses were built a few years before 1900, when a man called Frans Kempe thought this would be a perfect place for a steam saw mill. He built up a whole community on these islands, with the mill, worker´s housing, a shop, school, church, health care, and so on. About 1400 persons lived here when the saw mill was at it´s peak. In 1952, the mill was closed down, and the islands went through a lot of changes until the early seventies when the houses were sold to private persons. Some people lived here all year round for a while, but now all the buildings are summer houses, except a guest house and a YMCA camp site. The saw mill was unfortunately torn down a long time ago, but the machine house next to it has been turned into a museum and art gallery.
The house in this painting is the church building on the island. The church room is on the second floor, quite simple but beautiful.
50 x 50 cm, watercolours on Fabriano Artistico 300 gsm rough grain watercolour paper.