Welcome to the series "Home - Land of Silence" that will be shown in Venice from 18. - 27.May 2024.
More works willl be added when the exhibition opens.
If you want to know more about the inspiration for the pictures, you will find a text at the bottom after the last picture. Please click for bigger size.

Acrylic, pencil on paper, 70x50cm

Acrylic, pencil on paper, 50x75cm

Lino-cut, 15x12cm

Acrylic, pencil on canvas, 108,5x89cm

Acrylic, pencil on paper, 65x50cm

Acrylic, pencil on paper, 50x70cm

Acrylic, pencil on canvas, 87x110cm

Acrylic, pencil on canvas, 87x110cm

Acrylic, pencil on canvas, 89x110cm

Acrylic, pencil on canvas, 108x87cm

Acrylic, pencil on canvas, 87,5x110cm

Acrylic, pencil on canvas, 88x110cm
The exhibition/theme will be exhibited at Musa Pavilion, Palazzo Pisani-Revedin in. a parallel program to the 60.Biennale Di Venezia
Home - Land of Silence
From immemorial time, man has been on the run. We are chased by military regimes,
natural disasters and by values that are no longer ours. Geographical, mental and spiritual
aspects influence us. We seek inward. We want to protect, care for, find and build new
communities.
The theme «Home - Land of Silence « takes on new meaning. The focus is not on
abundance and luxury, but on something close and real. Towards identity. For who are
we? Who do we want to be? Without all the ornaments? Without the wrapping paper we
daily wrap ourselves in. When Home is no longer Home?
In this exhibition, I have given longing focus. The line shows the way. Not just
geographical movements, but mental ones. It is the storyteller and the guide that helps
me capture the wind, the moments, and the threads of life. In the rhythm of amniotic fluid
and life.
And it searches inward, to who we are, if we dare to be.
In this vulnerability I create and find connection and belonging.
With the circle and the free line, symbols in the rhythm of life. I am free to
create in this fragile landscape where mine and yours are no longer mentioned. Where
what was is no longer mentioned, but what is. You are the observer, alone and together
we give longing a home.
________________________
The solo exhibition «HOME - Land of silence»
VÅLÅDYMYR samtidskunstllaboratorium
Bergervn 2b, 3075 Berger
Opening Speech by Kjetil Røed
June 15, 2024, Kjetil Røed
________
Welcome!
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to open Kari Elisabeth Haug's exhibition "The Land of Silence" here at VÅLÅDYMYR Contemporary Art Laboratory in Berger.
What is it that we see in art? And what can we say about what we see?
When we see art, it is always concrete and immediate, like Elisabeth Haug's paintings, which we can see around us today. They revolve around what we call the big questions: What is the meaning of a human life? What is life and death, and how do we deal with these things? Big questions, indeed. Or? I wonder if we are doing each other a disservice by calling these questions "big," as it implies that the answers should be epic, grand, strong, and substantial. In reality, the most fruitful answers lie more in the attempt or draft, perhaps the sketch, as we can see in Kari Elisabeth Haug's works.
The expression is fragmented, vulnerable, and provisional—in contrast to the symbolic, grandiose, conclusive, and, yes, authoritative. Elisabeth Haug says, "Could it be like this?" instead of "This is how it is!" This, in my opinion, elevates these works and gives them their human credibility. This is what makes them vulnerable, just as we humans are vulnerable behind the armor and the mask. This is what makes the expression stripped down, just as we are naked under our clothes and behind the grand words. There is something truthful in nakedness, something that cannot be hidden once it is revealed, and thus also true in these artworks. The weight, or perhaps rather the human dignity, in the so-called "big" questions can only be uncovered when we realize how vulnerable, exploratory, and everyday the answers must be if we are to make any progress with them.
For Elisabeth Haug does not provide any definitive answers but rather gives a distinct, ambiguous form to our attempts. Ambiguity here is not negative but rather the necessary complexity we need to think thoroughly about something. Her paintings give us permission to dwell on the multifaceted, as, for example, the American artist Cy Twombly does, to whom some of her works might be compared. The French philosopher Roland Barthes says about Twombly, and I believe it applies to Kari Elisabeth Haug as well, that "there is a clarity in Twombly's subtlety, but this is not a vagueness that makes things foggy and dark, but that reassures us and teaches us to live with and experience the complexity of meaning."
With this perspective, the painting "The Trinity" is not an iconic image of canonized holy figures we know from the history of faith—God, the Holy Spirit, the Messiah, or Buddha, for example—but rather outlines of energetic fields, small circles of life, resonating with each other, which could just as well be a small, completely ordinary family—mother, father, child—or a small circle of friends, as the Messiah, the Virgin Mary, or some important prophet. These circles, or perhaps we should say encirclements, are the smallest common denominators of the life force because they appear fragile and at the same time seeking contact. Vibrating in a shared rhythm.
Every rose comes into its own in a garden, just as each of us only blooms in the flock, as we can see in another of Kari Elisabeth Haug's works. This search for your flock, whether you are a rose or a human, we find in her art as well, often taking form by drawing a line between who we are for ourselves and the necessity of being together. It doesn't necessarily have to be about people seeking community—nature's interplay and friendly ecosystems also play an important role in the images we see around us. For whether we take the path through a rose, a river, or mineral-rich red earth (as we can see in a picture of Mother Earth here), it is to find others or the greater life in nature, the bond between all living things, that which keeps us alive and makes life worth living. The community.
The bond, or the roots, or love, or friendship, which are the threads of life, are embedded in the traces we leave in each other, which in their simplest and most poignant form can be seen in another of Kari Elisabeth Haug's paintings, named "Imprint." Here we see three lines, a small visual poem, haiku if you will, which perhaps stands for what we leave in another. But it also stands for the bond between the work as an expression of life and the viewer standing before the work, for it is not the case that we who stand here today are isolated from the art around us and observe what is going on there from a distance. No, we take part in the processes of art whether we want to or not. We are roses that want to be part of the garden, friends seeking each other in the extended circle of friends in the art collective.
Parks and squares are commons, they are shared spaces we can all visit, enjoy, and wander around in as we please. They are places for recreation and reflection, and no one else should be able to interfere with whether you read a book, write a book, have a chat with your loved one, or just enjoy a cup of coffee. But the artwork is also such a shared space, it is in this "land in between," as one of Kari Elisabeth Haug's works is called, where we can circle around and return to our flock and the free spaces we need, just as other shared spaces become places to bloom as well.
Her works are an invitation to be together in the work on the big questions, which perhaps are rather small, as mentioned, but no less important, for we are together there as well, as viewers and humans, just as we are together here today, in front of or perhaps even within Kari Elisabeth Haug's works. Yes, the three small lines, and all the other traces in the works around us, are invitations to shared spaces where we can work together on what love is, what a home is, what a family is, how we should relate to death, and what the meaning of it all is. None of them have definitive answers, but all are addresses available to all, and addressed to all, and maybe they hit exactly you, so you can think further about what you have seen, thought, and felt through life with others.
Let us go in there together.
_______
About KJETIL RØED
Kjetil Røed opens my exhibition "HOME - The Land of Silence" at VÅLÅDYMYR Contemporary Art Laboratory in Berger.
Kjetil Røed (b. 1973) is one of the most prominent art and literature critics in Norway in recent years. He has been a regular contributor to Morgenbladet (2001-2010), Aftenposten (2011-2018), and Vårt Land (2018). In addition, he has contributed to many other newspapers and publications, including Le Monde Diplomatique, Klassekampen, Dagsavisen, Ny Tid, Norwegian Shakespeare and Theater Magazine, Kunstavisen, kunstkritikk.no, and the Danish Information, to name a few. He has also reviewed for international publications such as Frieze, Artreview, and Artforum.com. Røed has previously published Dislike (Flamme Publishing, 2014), Art and Life, a User Manual (Flamme Publishing, 2019), and Art and Death, a User Manual (Res Publica, 2021). Røed has been the editor of the magazine Billedkunst since 2018. Pelikanen has previously published the essay From Period to Colon (2022). (pelikanen.no)
Berger, June 15, 2024