"Woman in art and the first meeting"

With the theme - exhibition «The first Meeting» I wish to focus on women in art.
My starting point is the Norwegian author Sigrid Undset and her novel «Jenny» published in 1911. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson wrote the poem «The first Meeting» in 1868. These two works have given me the inspiration to this exhibition.

The Norwegian artists met in Rome at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Bjørnson (author), Grieg (composer) and Undset among others. They came here to get inspiration, to feel the freedom they did not find at home and to develop their art.

In 2013 I visited the cafe where they met, Antico Caffe Greco, established in 1760 and I was moved by the history in this «first meeting». I felt the atmosphere as I sat down, I felt a change of time, a feeling of coming «near».

Knowing that in these chairs made by purple coloured velours they were sitting ri- sing their glasses. The portrait of Sigrid Undset, the correspondence between Bjørnson and Grieg, Grieg`s music to the «First Meeting» and a newspaper article are prevailed and are shown on the wall. All these are testimonies of «The first Me- eting» with European art and culture.

I let myself be moved.

The spring 2017, I was invited to the exhibition «Woman`s Essence» in Paris. Musa International Art Space wished to focus on women in art and art made by women. As one of 80 women artists from all over the world I participated with my painting «You and Me». As a consequence of this I was chosen and presented as «Col- lectors Choice» in Rome some months later.

Again I was back in Rome. Again with a strong fascination to the antique cafe in the center of Rome. Again I was standing in front of the portrait, with a magic feel- ing of taking part in an odd fellowship regardless of time but with a common inten- sion.
It was like somebody wanted me something.

The history of Sigrid Undset, authorship and life fascinate me. I had read the auto- biography «Jenny» where most of the scenes were laid to Rome and the trilogy of «Kristin Lavransdatter». In these streets. In Via dei Condotti where you find Caffe Greco, the first meeting between Jenny and the man to whom she later was to be engaged to, took place.

I suddenly felt a kind of relationship to Sigrid Undset`s procurement.

  

.

I feel she hits something in my own art that bears the theme in her works and in the novel «Jenny».

In this way the title and theme of my exhibition in Galleria II Collezionista emerged. «The first Meeting» is inspired by these artists and by my meeting with Rome and the history the town tells.
«The first Meeting» has a special tribute to Sigrid Undset, the Norwegian female author who has inspired me and who in 1928 was awarded the Nobel Prize in lite- rature.

We are living in a time where women artists still struggle to be accepted. The Nor- wegian newspaper «Aftenposten» writes: »Among the ten artists who are the most selling ones there is not one woman». And I wonder why? #metoo has changed the world and has also changed the art? Will the future give us the same number of women who sell and get recognition as men?

The exhibition was presented in Norway, Undsets living place at the Museum of Lillehammer and Fossekleiva Culture Center, the museum of Vestfold.

​

All the paintings in this serie have quotes and comments. Please contact med for more information.

​

Read about this theme in the Magazine "Kunst"