Exhibition opening Thursday, August 27, at 6:00 PM.
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Tegnerforbundet – The Norwegian Drawing Center is pleased to present Is it really really real?, a group exhibition featuring twelve young Norwegian artists selected through a juried open call. Bringing together a broad range of contemporary drawing practices, the exhibition offers insight into how artists today use drawing to experience, understand and negotiate the world around them. A recurring concern in the works is the growing uncertainty surrounding images, representation and our perception of reality. The exhibition is curated by Espen Johansen.
Participating artists: Bella Fasmer, Erlend Peder Kvam, Even Esperø Nybakken, Faezeh Valadan, Ghazaal Nasiri, Hanna Undlien, June Kittelsen, Likrot, Marie Skibenes Botilsrud, Sigurd Grøndahl, Solfrid Elise Lindblom and Suzannah Rehell Øistad.
Drawing as a Technology for Experience
Is it really really real? examines how drawing can function as a technology of experience at a time when the relationship between images and reality is shifting. Rather than treating drawing as a medium that represents a “true” reality, the exhibition explores how different drawing practices create a sense of proximity, attention, memory and doubt through materiality, the body and time. In this context, drawing can be understood as process, language, material and method.
From Personal Experience to Conceptual and Socially Engaged Approaches
The exhibition brings together a diverse range of practices. The works move between personal experience, dreams, memory, nature, technology and society. Bella Fasmer creates intuitive visual worlds in which mythology, nature and social structures intertwine. Erlend Peder Kvam develops his own visual universes of characters and narratives without direct external references Even Esperø Nybakken creates meticulous figurative drawings of Norway’s old-growth forests. Faezeh Valadan considers drawing a fundamental way of thinking and creating. For Ghazaal Nasiri, drawing is an intuitive and embodied process in which embroidery, textiles and other materials become drawing surfaces. Hanna Undlien works with drawing in book form. June Kittelsen uses drawing as a form of visual diary. Likrot explores how portraits can hold contradictions. Marie Skibenes Botilsrud works with memories and family relationships, allowing everyday situations to take on new meanings when viewed in retrospect. Sigurd Grøndahl explores the immediacy and accessibility of drawing by combining documentation, reconstruction and imagination. Solfrid Elise Lindblom explores drawing as a slow counterpoint to an overwhelming media landscape, while Suzannah Rehell Øistad uses drawing as a way of exploring dreams, memories and the subconscious.
An Invitation to Dialogue and Reflection
With Is it really really real, Tegnerforbundet seeks to create encounters between different artistic practices without reducing them to a single thematic narrative. The exhibition invites audiences to reflect on the relationship between images, experience, memory, imagination and reality – and, not least, on what it means to draw at a time when more and more of our lives are being documented.
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Files to download:
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Picture (detail): Marie Skibenes Botilsrud. Vor Frue.
