Hedvig Lien Rytter (1973) works with drawing, painting and installation, and has been a member of Tegnerforbundet since 2012. Lien Rytter's drawings are often executed in black marker and pencil on paper, in both small and large formats. The choice of motifs ranges from old car wrecks to piles of materials from demolition sites and small tree house-like constructions in nature. The motifs can be associated with wear and tear, decay and destruction, but the way Lien Rytter stages them gives the works a melancholy, poetic and dreamlike undertone. The cleverly executed drawings move away from a direct reproduction of reality, and make room for existential themes such as loneliness, rootlessness and transience. Hedvig Lien Rytter lives and works at Nesodden. More information about Hedvig Lien Rytter here.
TF: Hedvig, can you tell us a little about your artistic practice?
CPR: I work within a figurative expression, and am interested in existential themes. I have also been involved in painting, and that was my main medium when I applied and went to the academy in its time. After a few years, I have found my way back to drawing, which in a way is to come home to me. Back to the source.
TF: How do you use drawing in your work? Tell us a little about your work process!
CPR: I have always been drawing, both as sketch work and now as my main expression. I use photography as a sketching tool and it fits well with my figurative expression. I collect material on trips in the woods and other places, preferably in the immediate area where I live and travel a lot. It is walking distance from where I live to my studio and several routes I can choose from. In the studio, I select and put together and subtract.
TF: What inspires you? Do you work from a theme?
CPR: I am inspired by what I see around me, but my main theme is the human, which is vague and big. I try to specify it in the drawings, and think that it is about sensations, and to evoke or describe a feeling or mood.
I am inspired by materiality, both in the actual drawing materials I work with, pencils, pens and paper and what they can give, but also in materials I observe, different textures. I am interested in making room and describing form. I also use photos from my and my family's history, where form and composition and mood arouse my interest. I can look for pictures that come to mind.
TF: What are you currently working on?
CPR: Now I am working towards exhibitions next year, first in Eidsberg Kunstforening in May 2021, and then Buskerud Art Center November / December 2021. I am doing pencil drawings based on pictures I took in my father's house after he died. The new owners tore out everything inside the house so that structures and other structures were uncovered. There is a bit of grief work in it, and then I am concerned with houses and rooms and buildings in the first place. I am interested in the process of building something and deconstructing a structure.
TF: What does drawing mean for you / your work?
CPR: For me, drawing is like a place to be, a bubble to go into. I have been doing it for as long as I can remember and it has always been important to me. It's like an extension of myself. But there is resistance in it too, like language. Applies to finding the words.
TF: Tell us a little about your work in Tegnerforbundet's sales department!
CPR: In the sales department, I have two drawings that are from a series of studies of roots and other trees. One of them was part of my exhibition at Tegnerforbundet in 2019 entitled There is a place for us, where the theme was tree houses in the forest built from random materials. It also included drawings of material piles from demolition sites. In a way, the forest floor images served as a connection between the material piles and the tree houses. "I like to highlight what is unusual or trivial and give it meaning.
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