“Ventebillede” (“Waiting Picture” from 1994 is an almost classic example of Michael Kvium's contrasting figure painting from the first part of the 1990s. A naked man with androgyneous features is sitting waiting, only wearing a watch and a bathing cap - waiting but for what and for how long? The work of Kvium is confronting us with the unpleasant and ugly sides of life, but in this painting also with a certain recumbent feeling of good-nature. The person depicted seems, in spite of his deformities, to have come to terms with his destiny and the infinite waiting time. By virtue of their perfection, Kvium's paintings are not only provocative confrontations. They are just as much an aesthetic expression of and tribute to the ugliness or to all that which falls outside the ideals.