NOE. HVA SOM HELST. ALT

For this exhibition, British based artist in residence Amy Stephens and Norwegian artist Nils-Thomas Økland, have chosen, borrowed and adopted materials from one another’s studios. This way of making has enabled the works to be restaged within the context of their own work ultimately enriching the conventional definitions of what an artwork can be. Every image has a narrative, given its place in popular culture, but when it is reworked or remixed in an artwork, it takes on a new meaning. During the making process, both artists have adopted a culture of signs based on the collective ideal of sharing forcing the work to enter a new state through the use of appropriation in an entwined system. Within this entanglement, one constituent cannot be fully described without considering the other.

Amy Stephens practice relates closely to drawing and the simple elegance of the drawn line. Her making process relies on the appropriation of existing materials from previous artworks forcing the work to often resist the finite. Using wood, metal, Perspex and an array of materials suggestive of urban living, Stephens constructs geometric frameworks that respond to existing architecture, visual and literary influences. Predominantly intuitive, the materials are carefully selected and assembled to create the perfect equilibrium of tone and structure.

Nils-Thomas Økland works with an array of arts traditions and most often he utilises several of them simultaneously. Considering himself predominantly a sculptor, he always keeps a very sculptural and material sensitive approach to making his art whether he works with drawing, print, photography, sound, or any other medium. Økland’s artworks frequently present the viewer with something, or at least part of something, that on one hand seems rather recognisable, while at the same time appear to be quite unfamiliar and peculiar given certain shifts and juxtapositions.