Galleri Opdahl

Roald Kyllingstad

Opening Saturday May 11th I 1 – 4 pm

Exhibition period May 12th – June 14th

Roald Kyllingstad (*1942) lives and works in Stavanger, Norway. The artists high-end finished exhibits intersect photorealism and abstract painting. His paintings are workings of extraordinary precision, proficient craftmanship and subtle nuances of colours – the almost hyperreal images are solely crafted with pastel crayons. His subjects are frozen moments of tranquility, deserted spots at night and abandoned places. Kyllingstad’s motifs are selected from the world of consumerism: shop window displays, shop interiors or parking-lots. He translates those ‚familiar’ pictures into a preternatural dimension far beyond the wellknown or trivial. The impact and application of artifical light is one of his most chief instruments. „I am fascinated the way light can alter the shape and surface of any objects“, says Kyllingstad. Even if he grants us a view of those in-depth and photorealistic scenarios, we are left outside, merely observers: astonished, bewildered and puzzled. Kyllingstad shows the paradox behind the ‚illusion of transparency’. Not: We see, what we see! But: We see what we want to see! As a result of each individual experience.

Our perception is not transparent und our sense of reality is not common. What is left, is the disbelief in an objective reality, in the existence of an impartial outside world.

Nihil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensibus

(There appear not to be any ideas in the mind before the senses have conveyed any in. According to Aristoteles)

Opening hours during the exhibition from May 19th, by appointment: +47 91613947

February 15th – March 17th 2019

December 2nd 2018 – January 13th 2019

From Tue 11th – Sun 23rd of December, weekdays by appointment only.

Saturday  11:00 – 15:00 / Sunday 12:00 – 16:00

PER DYBVIG

Opening Friday October 26th, 7 pm

Last week from Tue 20th – Fri 23rd of November, by appointment only.

Saturday 24th  11:00 – 15:00 / Sunday 25th   12:00 – 16:00

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

flipping birds and crushed oysters
like dreamland pools –
we push
through a limelight of dismay
where
in the passage – deeply set
ever so slightly tectonic plates shift
with a
long slow squeeze*

 

 

 

DICKON DRURY

February 16th – March 16th 2018

 

In this exhibition of Dickon Drurys recent paintings we find ourselves sheltering from the snow in the Home-Studio of an unseen artist. Clad with warmly coloured wooden paneling, the walls are home to a myriad of objects and images. Windows which are left ajar allow gusts of snow to occasionally blow in, forming a fragile connection between interior and exterior spaces.

In ‘Work-bench with Underwood’ a typewriter sits, loaded with a blank page, accompanied by blank note-books; an uneaten sandwich, and a still-burning cigarette. On the wall hangs various hand-tools and a print of ‘Hunters in the snow’ by Pieter Bruegel.

Meanwhile, in the boldly graphic and near-monochrome ‘Black Swan’ we encounter the death of a magnificent ornamental bird. Its red beak mirrors the wound in its chest. Black feathers burst outwards, mingling with snowflakes behind the falling animal.

Back inside the retreat we begin to understand that the swan’s death was an incident experienced by the Artist. In a number of interior paintings we see the maquettes she has made in response to this experience. Elegant coloured lumps balance precariously, while others are penetrated and skewered. Weight, balance and support play a key role in the maquette paintings, and gravity becomes a recurring theme throughout the exhibition. Shelves hold the weight of various plants, objects, small-sculptures and food stuffs. In ‘House of Cards’, the flimsy tower of images gives way. Cards flutter down to earth, echoing the falling feathers and snowflakes in ‘Black Swan’.

The tools used in the construction of the artist’s works are hung on nails in the walls, along with posters and postcards of inspirational paintings and sculptures. These images within the paintings skip through art history. From Michelangelo’s ‘Leda and the Swan’ through Bruegel, Munch, Matisse, Magritte and Moore. On one of the shelves in ‘Red Table with Maquettes’ we can see a winged-vase, evoking the work of British ceramicist Colin Pearson. After piecing together the dates of these art-works we might make a guess at the time period in which the narrative is based.

To try and understand the location, we look through windows and beyond a row of buildings, to glimpse a familiar pair of frozen lakes and a jagged mountain-range. In doing so, we realize that the studio we are holed-up in, is in fact located within the fictional town that Bruegels ‘Hunters in the snow’ are returning to.

Jala Wahid, Sebastian Jefford, Cecile B Evans, Nicholas Cheveldave, Natalie Dray, Andrew Mealor,
Ben Burgis & Ksenia Pedan, Victoria Adam, Sean Steadman

Organized by Rebecca Ackroyd

December 8th 2017 – January 14th 2018