Rising Phoenix by Alantherock: Two Speeds in One Painting

Rising Phoenix is an original acrylic painting by Alan Pedersen, working as Alantherock, and there is exactly one of it. The first thing the picture gives you is heat. A field of neon pink, with green and yellow dragged down through it in long wet strokes. The bird arrives second, and it arrives slowly, because every part of it is drawn at a fraction of the size of everything around it.

Rising Phoenix by Alantherock is an original acrylic painting on canvas by the Copenhagen artist Alan Pedersen, exclusive to NOKUKO. It measures approximately 83 by 83 centimetres including its painted frame, which is sold as part of the work. The phoenix is hand drawn in fine line over a neon painted ground. One original, no editions.

The painting has two speeds

The ground and the bird were made at completely different tempos, and the picture is built on the distance between them. Behind the phoenix the paint moves fast. Long vertical drags, a wide brush loaded and pulled from the top of the canvas towards the bottom in a single pass, magenta over orange over acid green, with the bristle marks left in and a few strokes thinning into drips near the lower edge. Nothing back there has been tidied.

Then the bird. Inside its outline the mark shrinks to the width of a pen and slows right down. The head and the neck are filled with small deliberate drawings: spirals, mandala flowers, hearts, open eyes, a net of squares, a curl of wave, and near the base of the neck a small grinning face looking straight out at you. None of this is decoration laid over a shape. It is what the shape is made of.

That distance is the argument of the picture. The fire is one gesture. The bird is a thousand small ones.

The paint falls and the bird looks up

Every stroke in the background runs downward, and the phoenix is the one thing on the canvas travelling the other way. The green and yellow column standing to the left of the bird is pulled from the top edge towards the bottom, thinning as it goes and ending in drips. The purples and oranges on the right do the same. The whole surface reads as something coming down.

The head is thrown back and the beak is open, pointing up and out past the top left corner. The neck widens as it descends and leaves the picture through the bottom edge, so the body is never shown. What you are given is the part that is already moving.

Set into the painted ground are small fragments of reflective cellophane, worked into the surface while the acrylic was still open. They throw back green and orange as you move past, so the picture keeps shifting slightly with the light in the room. A photograph cannot really carry that part. It belongs to the wall.

One painting, one frame, and no second copy

Rising Phoenix exists once, and the frame around it is part of the work rather than a housing for it. Alan painted the frame as he painted the canvas, and the two are sold together as a single piece. The measurement that matters is therefore the outer one: approximately 83 by 83 centimetres, frame included. There are no sizes to choose between, no colourways, and no print edition standing behind it.

The piece is signed by Alan Pedersen and marked by him as an original, and it carries a certificate of authenticity. NOKUKO issues certificates for original paintings rather than for prints, which is the honest distinction between this work and the art prints in the rest of the collection. Purchase and shipping are arranged directly with NOKUKO, as they are for every original.

The piece was first introduced in September 2024, alongside a second original called Ancestor, and that introduction still holds the clearest statement of how Alan treats these frames: they are an essential part of the pieces, not a finish applied afterwards. If you want to see how the same one of one logic reads in another hand, Abstract no.5 by Lis Lauendorf is the other original painting NOKUKO has written about, a single oil canvas where a fine line travels over painted colour and there is likewise only the one.

A phoenix is usually painted at the moment of the fire. This one is painted at the moment after, when the bird has to be assembled again detail by detail, and almost all of the effort in the picture has gone into that half of the story.

Alan says it plainly in his own note on the work: burn out, then rise from your own ashes, stronger and brighter than before. The painting agrees with him, and adds a condition. The rising takes longer than the burning.

About Rising Phoenix

What medium is Rising Phoenix painted in?
Rising Phoenix is an original painting made with water based acrylic on canvas, in warm neon colour. The phoenix itself is hand drawn in fine line over the painted ground, and small fragments of reflective cellophane are set into the surface.

What size is Rising Phoenix, and is the frame included?
The work measures approximately 83 by 83 centimetres including its frame. The frame is painted as part of the piece rather than added to it, so the painting and the frame are sold together as one work.

Is Rising Phoenix available as a print or in other editions?
No. Rising Phoenix is a unique piece. There are no sizes to choose between, no colourways and no print edition. Only the original exists.

What makes Rising Phoenix exclusive, and how is it bought and shipped?
It is an original acrylic painting held exclusively at NOKUKO, signed by Alan Pedersen and marked by him as an original. It comes with a certificate of authenticity, which NOKUKO issues for original paintings rather than for prints. Purchase and shipping are arranged directly with NOKUKO.

Written by NOKUKO.