Bente Saetrang

Bente Sætrang’s creative exploration of textile as a raw material takes place in the paradoxical tension between analysis and intuition, planning and chance, geometric systems, and logical shifts. She works in a very direct and physical way, carrying, tearing, boiling, measuring, digging, climbing. At the same time, she always allows her work the time and distance it needs. Finding new ways of handling the materials is a fundamental principle of her creative practice.

The perhaps most apparent and clearest manifestations of how she works are her collages. Yet she is also known for her depictions of draperies in acrylic paint, car spray, sandpaper, and pencil on untreated canvas. Her works are frequently characterised by an abstract, geometrical and emblematic idiom.

This applies in particular to her textile prints with indigosol – a chemical dye developed in the 1920s – on damask or cotton. The result of this time-consuming artistic process, in which layer after layer must be painstakingly applied, is a distinctive depth and clarity of colour. In addition to her textile works predicated on precise planning, Sætrang creates drawings in charcoal and pastel on paper, in which intuitive ideas, experiments, and memories of her travels are captured.

Lavishly illustrated, this extremely attractive book conveys a comprehensive picture of the Norwegian textile artist’s diverse approach by means of mostly large-format reproductions as well as numerous photographic insights into her studio. Essays by various authors illuminate Bente Sætrang’s oeuvre from different perspectives and locate her multifaceted work in a biographical, art historical, and sociopolitical context.


About the Artist
Bente Sætrang has worked as a textile artist since 1974. Based in Oslo, she trained and studied in Oslo and Poland. Throughout her career, she has exhibited extensively in Norway and abroad. She has had several major solo shows at important galleries, such as Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo and Bomuldsfabriken in Arendal. In 2004, the National Museum in Oslo and KODE Bergen showed a major retrospective exhibition of her work. Sætrang’s works have been acquired by important museums such as the National Museum Oslo, KODE Bergen, the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum in Trondheim, and Sørlandets Kunstmuseum. She was Norway’s first professor of textiles at the Statens høgskole for kunsthåndverkog design in Bergen, serving from 1987 to 1993, and has since been a lecturer and supervisor in various contexts.