Maiken Stene
Hå gamle prestegard
28.3.-31.5.15
Paintings, video, installation, sculpture and research on gardens, landscape painting and geology.
An abandoned campingwagon on the edge of a giant mining crater, but at the same time at the edge of wild, unspoiled nature. Who stayed in this shelter, and in which direction did they look? This is the start of a creative journey made by Maiken Stene, imagining a landscape painter and a geologist sitting together in the wagon. How do different people look at nature? What kind of nature is familiar, what kind is alien?
Point Voyeur
Maiken Stene took us on a journey into her created world during her artist talk 3.5.15. We heard about the importance of both the mining industry and the unspoiled nature in her homeplace Sokndal. She took us on journeys to dangerous, abandoned mines, and dramatically changed landscapes close to her studio, and to forbidden, private nature in the US. And to the abstract landscapes of her mind.
Artist talk
Part of her exhibition is also a research on how the view on landscape and gardens have changed through the times, both in art and in real life. I could see how an artificial landscape was blown to pieces with dynamite, and how a giant excavator really sounds and acts like a dinosaur.
Exhibition view
We were invited to create our own abstract landscape, by actively position us in relation to her framed paintings and panting sculptures. In this way I create a combination that only I will see, for just a fleeting moment, until I move to a different position.
Kindred Spirit of Asher Durand + Hudson
Exhibition view
Towards Eagle-Owl point
Agrarian Change
An interesting coincidence is that while Maiken Stene focuses on the ilmenite mining in Sokndal, so does Nils-Thomas Økland in his present exhibition at Sandnes kunstforening as well. While she is focusing on the transformed landscape of the mines, he is focusing on how the product of the mines, the coal-black ilmenite, is miraculously transformed into titaniumoxide white.
