During the last years Ib Monrad Hansen has painted a series of works with a starting point in the nine muses. The project evolves around the developement of a pictorial space, where the painter is withdrawn in favour of a 'pictureness', which opens up towards the paintings ability to unfold the human perception.

The paintings (which all measure 139 x 105 cm.) has not been done in a certain tradition, but are open towards the many formel possibilities inherent in the medium. Even when the inspiration comes from antiquity, the project is not classical as such. It is not nine depictions of the muses, but more visualizations of their functions.

Each muse has been used to give each painting a direction, a core, in a mostly direction- and coreless postmodern cultural space. The system of the muses has been constructed so they are bound to their common source: Mnemosyne, the memory, which represents the common and the general. At the same time they are different, and in this way the diversity, the multiplicity and the difference is maintained.