mandag 26. september 2016

Walking the hills, always on my mind

    Collectors cabinet Malcolm Ashman/Inger Karthum

Ett blikk inn i dette lille skapet, og jeg kastes fram og tilbake i tid. Der finner jeg min fars lille sigarett-eske fra før jeg ble født. Jeg husker den godt. Glimt da den ble trukket fram, sigarettrøyken, lukten blandet med synsinntrykk fra lokstallene i Narvik by.
En museumskopi kjøpt i Athen på -70 tallet. Bevares, for en tur det var.
Og her er London i nyere tid, besøk i Bath, arbeid i Malcolms atelier, måltider og container raiding, utstillinger og bortgjemte loppemarkeder.
Og en liten papirbit som M sparte på i mange år: 'your wish will be granted after a long delay'

Og hele denne verden er jeg en heldig og lykkelig deltager i dag.

Om en uke reiser jeg igjen til Bath til mine venner, til vår første felles utstilling i Bath Contemporary.



                    Inni her er det hemmeligheter som jeg tror kunne interessere flere



WALKING THE HILLS by Barry Lee Thompson

Night coats the world in stillness. We walk until a solitary place is found where thoughts can be given weight. We consider in silence. Our ideas reach out. A gentle spinning begins, and, despite an accelerating complexity, sleep comes quickly.
A dream, of two cities connected by a tunnel, but not a physical tunnel, rather an opening in each place, penetrating into accumulated layers of time, cutting deep through shared spaces, exposing experiences. The cities and the connective space is layers. Layered so each element is pressed or held within. Listen: from beyond come faint echoes, the churning industry of life and water and land and its scapes, creating new layers. And here, where we are, is not enclosed but open to everything, yet it feels like a chamber because of the quiet and because of something else. Moving through this space called a tunnel we become captivated by its vastness. We glimpse the past, the future. But despite the scale, it’s carefree, this journey, this moving through place and space and time. Memory can be like this, sometimes, when an outcome is known, definite, resolved, or when it’s simply felt or intuited. We move through, and we collect as we go along, because it’s only natural to want a souvenir. The collector takes, but nothing is owned, all is borrowed. Sentiment is the only thing retained every time, the only thing really worthy of salvage, for it’s a word for feeling.
Waking now. There has been a dream, that’s certain. But the clock ticks and there’s a falling away to the point of disappearance, so that the remembering itself becomes dreamlike. There are remnants, clues: sensory echoes, a feeling of openness, of places joined, of a shared history and future, but that’s all that’s remaining. We stay still, attempt to capture the detail. Softly, quietly, we creep towards it. There it is. Make a grab. But no, it recedes further, further. It’s brought out of reach. It’s like a butterfly, elusive like a butterfly. This is all butterflies, everything is butterflies, fluttering their precious and flimsy and beautiful wings, beating to a rhythm that’s known only to them. But because something can’t be held doesn’t make it any less. We know from past experience that a dream not captured may never return. The most we can wish for is that the same might be dreamed again, or that the dream will, at some time and in some way, be expressed in wakeful actions.

https://barryleethompson.com/

Vi er meget beæret over at en så dyktig og prisbelønt forfatter ville skrive om vår utstilling.
Thank you very much Barry









torsdag 22. september 2016

"Walking the hills" to uker til åpningen i Bath Contemporary

                     Walking tour Berlin Malcolm Ashman/Inger Karthum



                      Memorial 50x50cm



Inger Karthum NBK NG BBK

Inger Karthum is a Norwegian digital printmaker. Her 40 years of artistic practice are rooted in traditional copper etching, however the past 14 have seen a shift into digital and mixed media as Karthum has sought to push the boundaries of contemporary print. She creates multi-layered architectural imagery of deceiving complexity, which resonate a subtle dreamlike obscurity. Karthum’s environments often limit one’s perspective, encouraging the eye down a particular path and alluding to there being further space beyond the images peripheries - each piece feels like a fragment of a memory, suggesting a larger matrix of an elusive past experience. In Yellow Line II, for example, our line of vision is drawn down towards a polished granite floor, like that of a corporate building. There is a sense of emptiness and abandonment within this space, heightened by the presence of curled autumnal leaves. A yellow and black handled hammer placed in the foreground creates an air of uncertainty and ambiguity; its positioning seems considered and staged, prompting further questions about is placement and its significance. The structural complexity of Yellow Line II then begins to reveal itself, as layer upon layer of texture and photographic imagery emerges, even a torn ghost-like page from The Big Issue is worked into this sophisticated digital collage. 
Karthum uses a lot of grey and silvery blues creating a metallic coldness of urban modernity. The architectural focus of her work builds a strong sense of place and familiarity, the utilitarian and geometric form of her images referencing both the physical world and the inner psyche.
The theme of fragmented imagery and memory is demonstrated further in Karthum’s paper collage work, composed of torn paper containing script and printed type, as well as black and white photographic imagery.
Karthum is a member of Norwegian Visual Artists (NBK), Norwegian Printmakers (NG) and Buskerud Visual Artists (BBK). She has had numerous solo exhibitions in Norway, and has exhibited throughout Norway and the UK. Her work is held in many public and private collections, and will be exhibiting at Bath Contemporary as part of Walking the Hills, a collaborative project with Malcolm Ashman RWA RBA ROI.

malcolmashman.com
ingerkarthum.net

Bath Contemporary september 2016


   London 2 60x60cm















fredag 9. september 2016

Walking the hills


Så er tiden inne for utstilling i Bath, England. Vår felles utstilling som åpner 7. oktober 2016 i Bath Contemporary. Malcolm Ashman beskriver vår historie så godt i sin blogg, at jeg velger å legge den ut her i sin helhet.

I’m finishing a collection of small objects, a Collector’s Cabinet and a large sculpture for a collaborative exhibition in Bath called “Walking the Hills’ with artist Inger Karthum. These, together with joint and individual pieces, form a large body of work charting our working life and growing friendship over the last three and a half years.

We began by working on three large pieces that combined aspects of each others work. The initial diptych we called 'Walking the Hills' based on conversations we'd had about our respective childhoods. We'd both known we were artists from a very early age, born into families who had no idea of how to deal with us. Inger lived in Narvik, Norway, in the shadow of Sleeping Queen mountain and myself in the countryside around Bath in England. We spent much time alone, walking in nature, exploring the landscape and imagining futures immersed in the arts.

We have much in common, ways of looking and dealing with ideas about the world and for two people who had spent their lives working autonomously it was such a step to collaborate on joint projects.

The process has been extremely stimulating and satisfying, presenting new ideas and ways of working, giving me the confidence to pick up ideas that have been lying untouched in the back of my mind for many years. Above all we've had fun. We've played like the young people we were way back, finding excitement in new ways of working, not caring whether it would be of interest to anyone other than ourselves or how it might fit into the commercial art arena.

In the Collector's Cabinet is a scrap of paper from a fortune cookie I'd kept for many years; I imagined some day I might find the perfect place for it.

"your wish will be granted after a long delay"

Malcolm Ashman





mandag 5. september 2016

Walking the hills

Paths 90x90cm.
Så er det snart åpning av utstilling i Bath Contemporary(Bath, England) 7-29oktober 2016
Et samarbeid mellom billedkunstner Malcolm Ashman og meg selv som startet for ca 2 år siden. Vi har kjent hverandre i snart fire år og den felles plattformen vi har bygd gjennom disse årene er åpnet for et unikt og lekent samarbeid.




Vi snakker eller er tause og jobber mye når vi er sammen. Vi har tillit til hverandre, har reist sammen med våre respektive familier og har etter hvert kommet til å forstå og kjenne hverandre godt.
Walking the hills fortsetter inn i framtiden med flere utstillinger i Norge.