An exhibition celebrating the Henrik Ibsen centenary displays artwork based on the most important plays as seen through the eyes of six contemporary Norwegian artists.
10/01/2006 :: Six artists were given one Ibsen play each to interpret in their art:
Therese Nortvedt: ' A Doll's House'
Nortvedt, a graduate from the Academy of Fine Art in both Trondheim and Oslo, now lives in London. During the 1980s she was part of the flourishing art scene in the East Village, New York. Female figures have always played a dominant role in her iconography and are apparent in her interpretations of 'A Doll's House'.
Hanne Christiansen: 'Peer Gynt'
Christiansen studied at the School of Arts and Crafts and the Academy of Fine Arts in the 1970s and has since been described as a bearer of the classic values in art, even at her most expressive.
Thore Hansen: 'An Enemy of the People'
Hansen commenced his studies at the Academy of Arts and Craft at the age of 18 and print has since served as his approach to pictorial art. He made a name for himself as a print artist and painter in the 1970s. His background in graphic art has given him a preference for striking contrasts and nearly colourless encounters between black and white in his paintings.
Bjørn Carlsen: 'The Wild Duck'
Carlsen attracted attention as an outstanding painter already at his first public exhibition. Many aspects of his art can be connected with the preference for the grotesque and terrifying that marked the early Romantic period of the late 1700s. In his world of motifs Carlsen has drawn from a rich gallery of unsavoury characters whom he portrays mercilessly.
Ulf Nilsen: 'The Lady from the Sea'
At the age of 20, Nilsen started working as an assistant painter at a theatre in Trondhiem, an encounter which has had enormous significance for him and has influenced many aspects of his art. It has contributed to his secure mastery of the staging of a picture, in the form of a either strikingly staged works within a particular format, or the staging of entire exhibitions where individual works become an integral part of connected series of works.
Thomas Knarvik: 'Hedda Gabler'
In recent years Knarvik has represented an independent voice in the tension that has existed in the interface between the figurative and the abstract. His basis is the interest that has arisen in young painters of his generation for classical figuration.
The exhibition will run at the Riverside Studios, London, from 16 January to 12 February. All the exhibits are for sale.
Member of the National Committee for Promotion of Ibsen, Ellen Horn, said of the project: 'With this exhibition we have the collective presentation of what six recognised contemporary artists have seen in their meeting with six dramatic works written by Norway's foremost playwright - in the Ibsen year 2006.'
Executive artistic director of the National Ibsen Committee, Bentein Baardsen, added: 'Even in Ibsen's own time he was commented on by artists like Munch and Grieg - and as we know these works have remained standing as independent and central works in the history of Norwegian art. Thus Ibsen 2006 regards this project as an important part of the work to preserve and revitalise Ibsen's heritage... an inexhaustible source of inspiration for generation upon generation.'
Ibsen Art 2006
Riverside Studios,
Crisp Road, London W6 9RL
Tel: 020 8237 1000
Mon 16 Jan - Sun 12 Feb
12 noon to 10.30pm
Free Entry