“In Me, You Are” (I meg finnes du) presents large-scale wooden sculptures, reliefs, textile montages and paintings by norwegian contemporary artist Gunvor Nervold Antonsen. The exhibition is accompanied by a poetry publication.
Humanity and powerful nature greet you at the very entrance of the exhibition. Monumental textile montages are juxtaposed with chainsaw-carved wooden figures.
Nervold Antonsen explores the sense of powerlessness one can feel when economic and political choices destroy nature. But instead of hopelessness, she chooses, through the materiality of art, to focus on the power of nature. Both the exhibition and the poem illuminate nature’s strength and might, as well as the love between humans and nature.
An intention behind the projects “The Enduring” and “In Me, You Are” is to transform experiences of despondency and political frustration regarding nature into a counter-voice and a force. By artistically processing experiences and reflections, the artist hopes the project can foster more openness for environmental engagement and different horizons of understanding. Nature loss is a part of everyday life for many people, and the artist’s own experiences with this become an entry point for reshaping those experiences into an artistic form.
“The relationship with nature is an essential part of my life and my artistic practice. It affects how I live, in and near nature on nature’s own terms, but it also affects the very belief in nature and humanity as a single unit, a greater ecocentric power. In my work, I strive to be conscious of creating something that, just as with all human life, is not necessarily meant to last.”
– Gunvor Nervold Antonsen
Gunvor Nervold Antonsen (b. 1974) lives and works in Rollag in Numedal. With an experimental, energetic, and rugged expression, she explores society and existence, often from a personal and local starting point. Nature’s fundamental forces, its rawness, and its cycles are in constant interplay with Nervold Antonsen’s artistic expression. Literary texts and performative readings are also part of her artistic practice. She often collaborates with musicians in the performance of her own texts.
Nervold Antonsen was educated at the Experimental Gymnasium in Oslo, Usko-Ayar Escuela de Pintura Amazónica in Peru, Bergen National Academy of the Arts, Kunsthochschule Berlin Weissensee, and the University of Oslo.
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of a poem. “In Me, You Are” is a long poem in which nature itself speaks, addressing a “you”—a wanderer who constantly seeks out nature.
The exhibition has received financial support from Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond, Kulturrådet and Ingerid, Synnøve og Elias Fegerstens stiftelse for norske bildende kunstnere.