Opening on 10 April at 18:00–20:00.
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Tegnerforbundet – the Norwegian Drawing Center – is pleased to present the first retrospective exhibition of Inger Johanne Grytting’s (b. 1949) drawings. The exhibition provides the public with a unique opportunity to delve into Grytting’s rich and dynamic relationship with drawing, a medium that has been central to her artistic practice. The drawings span three decades, from 1994 to 2024.
Grytting was born in Svolvær, but it was in New York, where she has resided since 1972, that her artistic development took place. After studying at City College of New York, where she worked as an assistant for the sculptor Chaim Gross, painting dominated her practice in the 1980s. However, drawing became her primary form of expression from the 1990s onward.
The exhibition at the Norwegian Drawing Center covers this extensive part of Grytting’s career, with a particular focus on the evolution of her drawing from semi-abstract, fragmented forms in a representational idiom to pure abstract expression. Early works from the 1990s show how Grytting worked with partially recognizable forms, balancing on the boundary between the figurative and abstract. Through these drawings, we see the artist’s exploration of understanding and constructing pictorial space through fragmented yet structured elements.
With works included in the collections of the National Museum in Oslo, Stavanger Art Museum and Nordnorsk Art Museum, Grytting has distinguished himself as a central figure in both Norwegian and international contemporary art. The exhibition Inger Johanne Grytting: Three decades in drawing is a recognition of an artist who, for three decades, has allowed the pencil to become an extension of her own body, where every stroke testifies to a deep fascination with both the material and the process.
The exhibition is a collaboration between Inger Grytting, Westwood Gallery, New York, and Tegnerforbundet - the Norwegian Drawing Center.
Curator: Lene Fjørtoft.
Exhibition producer: Hilde Lunde.
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Photo: Inger Johanne Grytting, Studio 2022. Photograph by Ruth Mirsky.
