Plain Weave - Rewoven by Kari Dyrdal. Art Grows From Joy and Sorrow by Lydia Soojin Park and In House and Home by Khio Students

Artist list

Peder Bye, Kari Dyrdal, Olve Fjeld-Eiken, Lukas Kleven, Pauline Krokeide, Jean Christian Midtgarden, Lydia SooJin Park, Amanda Tonning

Kari Dyrdal
Plain weave – Rewoven 

Definition of plain weave: The warp and weft threads cross at right angles; canvas; one of three basic types of weaving.
The simplest form of weaving. The first weft thread passes over and under the warp threads. The next weft thread passes under and over, in the alternate order.
 
Definition of plain: Adjective; simple, clear, precise, unambiguous, little or nothing in addition, undecorated

Everything has a beginning.
Kari Dyrdal has gone back to the beginning; to the simple surface, to the divisions, structures, materials and colours. In the exhibition she explores the signs that are formed in a woven surface. Her starting points are some of her early sources of inspiration: woven fabrics, the rich surfaces of Anni Albers and the breathing textiles of the Yoruba People. Dyrdal has wanted to reweave them, and tried to reweave them.
 
Kari Dyrdal (b. 1952) studied at Bergen College of Arts and Crafts and Croydon College of Art & Technology in London. She recently exhibited with other leading Norwegian ceramic and textile women artist at Cromwell Place in London and at the exhibition Odd and Even – A collection in Maison Louis Carré in France, both exhibitions arranged by Taste Contemporary. Dyrdal’s solo exhibitions include Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall, Hå Gamle Prestegaard and Almdahls Sidenveveri Stockholm, among others. Her works have been purchased by the National Museum in Oslo, KODE in Bergen, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum in Trondheim, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum in Kristiansand, the Museum of Fine Art Boston and the Museum of Fine Art Riga. Dyrdal has won several prizes and produced many works of public art.


Lydia SooJin Park
Art Grows From Joy and Sorrow
 
Everything, including time and emotion, accumulates and leads us somewhere new. Lydia SooJin started considering the ceramic genre in diverse cultural settings and applied her personal values and inquisitiveness to ceramics scouts. Her ideas are rich in the concept of relativity, and she conveys the metaphorical message that 'it is not completely all that is seen' through the sculptures that briefly resemble vessel shapes such as vases and kettles but ultimately challenge the notion that external characteristics fully capture the essence of functional ceramics.
 
Munch's quote: Art Grows From Joy and Sorrow, which anyone could relate to, struck her as deeply thoughtful one September. She once again realized that our lives were not always sad and happy, as if our days were also imbued with a complexity that defies simple categorization. Unfamiliar feelings can be experienced as freshness, and routine from day-to-day living can be perceived as stability. In other words, everything depends on your mind. Once again, it provided an opportunity to consider the world's relativity in everyday life beyond the realm of ceramics.
 
By harnessing the variability of materials that dry out in the air and solidify in heat, she conveys the meaning of accumulation, a prerequisite for the concept of diversity to be born (created) before the concept of relativity. Through the repetition of piling up the textured clay of different thicknesses to complete different organic-shaped sculptures, the idea of the accumulation of time and emotion is visually transferred in a similar way to how we collect memories. Furthermore, the intangible emotions and thoughts derived from everyday life are visually manifested in a myriad of hues on sculpture through unpredictable glazes. The soft curved shape found in the work connects not only Lydia's genre concerns about ceramics, longing for nature, and expression of accumulation, but also the flow or fluidity of inspired stories in everyday life.

Lydia SooJin Park (b.1989, Seoul) lives and works in Oslo. She received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013; an MA from Hongik University, Seoul in 2021; an MFA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and was honorably awarded the Student Prize 2023 by the Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts. Park has been exhibited worldwide in London, Seoul, Trondheim, Bergen, and Zurich. Her work can be found in prominent institutional collections including KODE Bergen, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, and Universal Ballet, Seoul.


In House and Home
Khio Students

Enamel is neither glass nor metal, but it is through the meeting between these two materials that new surfaces, colours and structures emerge.
 
Students from Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) present works which they have developed in the course ‘Advanced Enamel Techniques’, held during autumn 2023. The students have chosen their own research projects and themes. Since autumn 2019, KHiO’s section for metal and jewellery has worked to rebuild and develop the study of enamel at the school. This has resulted in several workshops and increased specialisation in enamel as a medium for artistic projects amongst the students working in the field of metal and jewellery. By experimenting with techniques, colours and compositions, they explore how enamel can best be used as a method and means in their artistic research.

The exhibiting students are Peder Bye, Olve Fjeld-Eiken, Amanda Tonning, Jens Christian Midtgarden, Pauline Krokeide and Lukas Kleven.


Opening Reception: Thursday 11 January at 6 pm