TRANSFORMATIONS
September 30 – October 23, 2022

MELK is excited to present the group exhibition TRANSFORMATIONS with works from Elin Brissman, Rune Elgaard, Christopher Rådlund, Marianne Wiig Storaas and Linda Soh Trengereid.

Technology and art have been connected for centuries in ways that has developed progressive artistic concepts and changed the way art is created and shared, enabling artists to gain access to expand their mediums beyond conventional boundaries.

In the group exhibition titled TRANSFORMATIONS we have gathered five artists working with drawings and paintings that utilize photography as the first part of their process. A technique dating back to the renaissance period when artists like Vermeer (among many others) started to use a camera obscura, where the painters would project the subjects onto a wall in a dark room and draw over it. Hence why camera obscura translated from Latin to English literally means ‘dark room’. 

Inspired by this process we have invited Elin Brissman, Rune Elgaard, Christopher Rådlund, Marianne Wiig Storaas, and Linda Soh Trengereid who all use photography in different ways in their artistic practice and will show new paintings for this exhibition. 

Elin Brissman works with time-consuming, photorealistic oil paintings with simple, flat and formalistic compositions. Starting with photographs of everyday post-war architecture, she paints specific buildings, choosing those that do not stand out. In a society where so much is calling for our attention, she is interested in the low-key qualities of post-war modernism. Safe, simple shapes and small variations. Functional, practical and down-to-earth. Her paintings become an archive of the background noise of cities. Human lives are interpreted through the traces they leave behind.

Rune Elgaard’s artistic practice addresses poetic statements that are characterized by the incomplete and the ambiguous. Combining both figurative and non-figurative elements, his work is executed with a masterly sense of precision and detail. With strategies related to Dada and Surrealism, Elgaard samples seemingly unrelated elements and meanings to surprising new compositions and narratives. He finds, selects, and saves imagery and text material from magazines, books and films, often with historical and/or art historical references. The works are generated through intuitive juxtapositions of archive material.

From early in his career, Christopher Rådlund worked in parallel with darkroom photography and charcoal drawing with ascetic landscape motifs. A method developed where the charcoal drawing took the form of a development process. The form of work was transported into the painting simulating shapes, tones, and light that are exposed on the canvas. Rådlunds paintings represent simplicity, silence, soothing, darkness and longing. 

In Marianne Wiig Storaas paintings she is concerned with the intrinsic value of her craft. The actual time it takes to paint a picture is visible. This is a formal contrast to the immediacy of photography, and a prerequisite for processing photographic material in a medium which, after the photograph, is always seen by eyes that are oriented towards the photographic optics. She is keen to show off the photographic presentation. The use of photography and the instability of its approach is present in the paintings, she uses photography’s “mistakes, such as light onto the film or double exposures, to create distance to subjects that are personal, painful and nostalgic.

Linda Soh Trengereid’s paintings balance between the actual and the fictional, a kind of magical realism where the subjects are detached from a specific time and place. The works give associations to hand-colored photographs and graphics, but with clear painterly and drawn qualities. Trengereid works serially, in varying sizes, from the small and intimate to large formats that fill the entire field of vision. The starting point for her motifs comes from places she has visited and stayed, both ordinary and more exotic locations. The motifs are snapshots from random situations she has come across.

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Elin Brissman (b. 1982, Sweden) lives and works in Bergen. She graduated with a Master of fine art at Bergen National Academy of the Arts in 2011. Elin Brissman has exhibited at Galleri Langegården, Bergen (2013, 2016, 2020), Trafo Kunsthall, Asker (2017) and Galleri LNM (2019) amongst others, participated in group shows such as Høstutstillingen (2012, 2017, 2020) and 1968 – 2018, 50 år med LNM (2018) and been purchased by KORO, Bergen Kommune, Hordaland Fylkeskommune, and others.

Rune Elgaard (b. 1980, Denmark) lives and works in Oslo. He holds a MA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts. He has exhibited at KB Contemporary, Oslo (2022), White Noise Gallery in Rome (2021), Labor, Cologne (2018) and LNM, Oslo (2018) among others. Elgaard is represented by White Noise Gallery and KB Contemporary. His works are in several private and public collections such as REV Ocean, KLP, Norway and Nykredit Foundation, Denmark.

Linda Soh Trengereid (b. 1984, South Korea) lives and works in Bergen. She graduated with a master’s in fine art at Bergen National Academy of the Arts in 2011. In recent years, she has had solo exhibitions at Visningsrommet USF in Bergen (2021), Voss kulturhus (2018), Kunstgarasjen in Bergen (2017) and Galleri LNM in Oslo (2016). Her works have been purchased by Haukeland University Hospital, the University of Bergen and Fana Kulturhus and other private collections.

Marianne Wiig Storaas (b.1972, Norway) lives and work in Oslo. She graduated with a master from Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2002. Wiig Storaas is represented by KB Contemporary. She has been exhibited at Galleri QB (2019) LNM (2015), Trafo Kunsthall (2012), Bomuldsfabriken in Arendal (2010), Haugar kunstmuseum (2008), Kunstnerforbundet (2006), Stensersenmuseet (2004), Den Frie Udstilling in Copenhagen (2000) and Høstutstillingen (several times). Her works are in several private and public collections such as Norwegian Parliament, The Norwegian Bank, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and she has been acquired by the National Museum of Arts, Architecture and Design with several works.

Christopher Rådlund (b. Sweden 1970) lives and works in Oslo. He is educated at the Konstindustriskolan (HDK) in Gothenburg in 1988–1991 and 1994–1995, the Konstögskolan in Umeå in 1992–1995 and Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 1995–1998. He has had a number of solo exhibitions including Galleri Semmingsen 2022, Galleri Ismene 2021, Galleri Langegården 2019, Galleri EKG 2017, Forsvarsmuseet 2014, Kunsthub/Rod Bianco 2012 among others. has also been a frequent guest in group exhibitions. Among these are the Autumn Exhibition on several occasions, Gothenburg Art Gallery, Røros Museum, Liljevalch Art Gallery, Stenersen Museum, Henie Onstad Art Center, Kristiansand Art Gallery, Värmlands konstmuseum, Festspillene in Northern Norway and more.