Favela Villa Broncos (left) and Favela Villa Candido (right) at the Danish National Gallery's exhibition The Brazil Series, by American musician Bob Dylan. (Keld Navntoft/AFP/Getty Images)

Musician Bob Dylan's paintings of Brazil and its people, never before seen in public, have gone on display at Denmark's National Gallery.

The exhibit features 40 large acrylic paintings of scenes from Brazil's beaches, farms and slums. A dozen other Dylan works, previously exhibited, are also on display at the Copenhagen gallery.

"I chose Brazil as a subject because I have been there many times and I like the atmosphere," the 69-year-old singer said in a statement.

Curator Kasper Monrad said the 40 paintings were made for the Danish exhibition, which opened Saturday and closes at the end of January.

Paintings by Dylan were previously exhibited in 2007 at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz museum in the small German city of Chemnitz. Last year, a London gallery followed suit.

"I can take a bowl of fruit and turn it into a life-and-death drama," the performer told Mojo magazine in a recent interview. "Women are power figures so I depict them that way."

In the interview, he said he has always painted but there had never been any interest in his art until recently.

The cover of his 1970 album Self Portrait was his creation, and his drawings were included in his books Writings and Drawings and Lyrics 1962-1985.