Mikael Hegnar works with the artist's studio as a metaphor and mental state. The overarching theme crystallizes into a bombardment of fragmentary experiments, with the studio as the frame narrative; as if the artist is a story created by his own workshop. In the frame narrative (the studio), the curiosity is guided from large oil pastel drawings on paper, via glass vases over to strange, Ivo Caprinske studio props in cardboard. Hegnar draws detached impressions and objects from art history and uses them lazily - with an awkward but meticulous nonchalance - in his works. He borrows an object from Picasso's studio and another from Brancusis, and then cuts them into his own. The result is a fragmentary void with a violent narrative span that the viewer can witness a distinctive but natural paradox: absent presence, absent presence, touché.
Mikael Hegnar (b. 1984). MA from the Art Academy in Oslo. Has previously had solo exhibitions at e.g. Akershus artist center and Galleri Trafo, as well as participated in several group exhibitions.
