at Haugesund Billedgalleri, as part of the International Norwegian Film Festival!
Exhibition opens August 17th at 18:00.
VIA NORSKE FJELL part 5 is about the mountain as surface, and the attempt to physically understand what a mountain is.
I’ve taken as my starting point industrially produced mountainsides from before 1870, when ore was extracted using nitroglycerin in hand-drilled boreholes, made with hammer and chisel.
While working on the paintings, I’ve stood directly in front of the mountainsides, studying them intensely. Then I’ve returned to the studio and painted from memory.
The paintings are fast. They are made as direct responses—painted from the afterimages of the rock face. Painted with rollers, on the floor or standing, using large brushes, sweeping strokes, with my hands, in gestures that physically mimic the mountain wall in front of me.
The paintings have two sides and can be moved and rotated around their own axis. You look at a surface, flip it, and encounter a surface again—just like with a mountain. Even when we blast it away to get closer, we are always met with another wall of stone.
Throughout the festival week, the exhibition will be filled with a live performance by artist Greg Pope and myself, where we create film in and with the installation. It will be a playful affair, improvising with filming, movement, poetry reading, music, and interaction with the audience. In the center of the installation, we’ll set up an editing station, and here we’ll work daily to make a film with and around the paintings. After the festival ends, the installation will remain in place, now showing the film we created during the week.
