Im abendrot

Im abendrot

Conceived half asleep, felt along the seashore, assembled in dad’s garage.

«Your hiding place isn’t watertight. Life trickles in from the outside, and you’re forced to react. No one asks if it is true or false, if you’re genuine or just a sham. Such things matter only in the theatre, and hardly there either.»

– Ingmar Bergman

In my jacket pocket and inside my bag there is a still-life in continuous motion, made up of traces of things I have done, and things I should have done. On my phone I jot down reminders that I forget to check. The desktop on my mac has mounds of screenshots saved for later inspiration, which at some point gives me hours of muffled laughs as I go through them to free up space on my hard drive. Every night, right before I fall asleep, all this pops back up in my head. And not in an orderly way, usually more like a sour polyphonic choir. Or a bit like the ads that pop up in Steven Spielberg’s «Minority Report», the ones that use Tom Cruise’s character’s first name to nag at him while he is on the run..

«Everybody’s life is a soap opera. Everybody’s life is like a country western song, depends on who’s writing it.»

– Dolly Parton

All the pocket debris, all the screenshots, all the unanswered emails, all the Tinder-matches (or usually rather the ones I didn’t match with), they all whirl together in a kind of blender. I believe this blender is called the unconscious, academically speaking. And it spins at full speed. Anxiety and desire fight loudly and compete for space. Like that scene from «Bridesmaids», where the two bridesmaids (played by Kirsten Wiig and Rose Byrne) compete to deliver the most funny, moving and thankful speech in honor of the bride (played by Maya Rudolph). I often catch myself shouting «fuck», or actually LOL’ing for real. The duvet becomes a fragile shelter and the receipts become kindle for the fire. If one is sufficiently self-absorbed, one becomes universal.

«Never let anyone tell you that it is important to separate between personal and private!»

– Vilde Von Krogh

«This is where the magic happens»

– Absolutely anyone from MTV’s «Cribs» when the camera enters the bedroom

Tor Erik Bøe (f.1986) is a visual artist from Sjenarøy. He is educated at the Academy of the Arts at University of Tromsø, Prosjektskolen Art School in Oslo and Kunstskolen i Rogaland. From 2013 until 2017 he was a part of the artistic duo Trollkrem, together with Jennie Bringaker. His work and collaborations have been exhibited widely, including at Fotogalleriet, Kunstnernes Hus, Kurant Visningsrom, Momentum 9, Heimdal Kunstforening and the Munch Museum.

This is Tor Erik Bøes first solo-exhibition in Rogaland

Photos from the Exhibition by Eivind Egeland: