Mineral Deposits

A mineral – naturally occurring solid chemical compound – rarely exists on its own, but often in association with other substances. Although inorganic by common definition, minerals are also synthesised and created by living organisms. Looking even deeper, underlying it all, there is chemical bonding, which is the association of atoms into molecules, ions, crystals, and other stable species that make up the everyday world. In light of this active and interconnected matter, it appears then that an agent never acts alone, but is shaped by numerous external bodies and forces. Moreover, by disregarding the belief in matter as inert, organisms can be interpreted as distributed forms of common material, such as minerals, for example.

The mind-boggling world of minerals provides a point of departure for the group exhibition that proudly presents works by the invited artists: Daniel Hansen, Anne Guro Larsmon, and Martin Stråhle.

Daniel Hansen’s mixed media installation features an island as a scene of a drama. The story, which is part fabulation and part poetic truth, leans on the philosophy of new materialism and elicits the question: without dominating a subject – in this case an island and its history – how can we interact with it?

Anne Guro Larsmon’s glass sculpture of a lobster exoskeleton, lit from below and installed on a robust metal podium, emanates a powerful presence. From a perspective of a vertebrate, it is a peculiar body turned inside out, one that simultaneously reveals and hides.

Working with the medium of painting, Martin Stråhle enquires into its methods and materiality. In forests and mountains surrounding his hometown Bergen, he creates ‘landscape’ paintings by spreading a canvas on the ground and applying sand, soil and the like. The resulting image is not a literal portrait of a place but a channelling of energy of sorts.

Mineral Deposits has been curated by Mirja Majevski out of Open Call applications received by Studio17 during the year 2018.