16.10. — 16.11.2025

On Wednesday, 15 October at 6 p.m. we inaugurate the solo exhibition ‘Dazzlers’ by the Oslo-based Sami artist Hanne Grieg Hermansen (Sápmi/Norway, 1984, lives in Oslo), whose work centres on the impact of light on the apparatus of perception – and on the photographic apparatus – can be rendered in the labour-intensive and decidedly ‘manual’ technique of pencil or colour pencil on paper.

Kohta continues its series of exhibitions by younger Nordic artists with Dazzlers, presenting pencil and colour pencil drawings on paper by Hanne Grieg Hermansen. Although the seemingly self-glorifying exhibition title may refer to a laser-based self-defence weapon, causing temporary blindness without long-term harm to the eyes, it is best taken with a pinch of salt. The title is, in actual fact, purely descriptive.

Light and its often ambiguous relationship to the perceptual apparatus – as well as to the reflection and self-reflection of the viewer – are the overall themes of Grieg Hermansen’s practice. Her work, primarily executed in pencil and colour pencil on paper, is based on various kinds of photographic images. The photo-realist tradition that she subscribes to demands a critical and analytic approach to the time-consuming work process and its result.

Grieg Hermansen comes out of a Sami environment and has been actively engaged in Sámi Dáiddáčehpiid Searvi, the Sami Artists’ Association – but she has just as actively chosen not to ‘work with identity’ as an artist. Or rather: the identity she has chosen to work with is that of the artist first and foremost and then, probably, that of belonging to a family of stage light professionals.

The works in the exhibition belong to several larger projects. Soloppgang ved Fontainebleau (Sunrise at Fontainebleau, 2016, pencil on paper mounted on aluminium, 140 × 100 cm) is part of a series conceived as a homage to Danish landscape painter Valdemar Schønheyder Møller (1864–1905). A colleague and close friend of Vilhelm Hammershøi’s, he exhibited his ‘sun paintings’ (based on photographs taken against the sunlight in environments such as the forest at Fontainebleau) at the Exposition universelle in Paris in 1889 and 1900, but he was also bipolar and committed to the Århus mental hospital during his last years. Grieg Hermansen herself took over 1000 photographs of sunlight peeking through the trees at Fontainebleau and has based this drawing on one of the ‘failed’ pictures, with a prominent glare effect.

Fra Dale (From Dale, 2023, colour pencil on paper, 70 × 50 cm) was not meant to directly reference Schønheyder Møller, but does nevertheless contain resonances of his motifs. The title is formulaic and somewhat ironic, while the work itself is a close reading of what is specific to both photography and drawing. Grieg Hermansen has scanned an analogue photograph and drawn it from the computer screen. The qualities of the original image were almost completely lost but have been replaced by a new physical reality.

Source Four #1–3 (2019, colour pencil on paper mounted on aluminium, each 200 × 140 cm) is the result of another, more extensive experiment. To problematise and synthesise what happens in he eye and the brain when we perceive white daylight, she rented a black box, borrowed lamps from Oslo’s National Theatre, took another 1000 photographs of ‘light as such’ and chose some of the most ‘burnt-out’ to build her images from. With the help of both colour pencils and erasers she has painstakingly achieved hues light enough for the drawings to convey what she calls ‘a development inside the eye’.

As a side effect, all these pictures against the light may also evoke the elusive condition known as ‘inner light’. For humans, light has always had metaphorical and spiritual dimensions, especially in times that may rightfully be characterised as dark.

Hanne Grieg Hermansen studied at the Nordland School of Arts and Film at Kabelvåg, the Academy of Fine Art in Oslo (BA) and the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (MA). She has participated in many exhibitions in Norway and within the field of Sami contemporary art, such as the First Sápmi Triennial touring Norway, Finland and Sweden in 2024–26.

The Triennial can currently be seen at Rovaniemi Art Museum, through 23 November. It was organised in collaboration between the Nordland Museum in Bodø (with Bodø 2024, European Capital of Culture), Sámi Dáiddaguovddáš (Sami Centre for Contemporary Art) in Karasjok, Rovaniemi Art Museum, Oulu Art Museum (with Oulu 2026, European Capital of Culture) and Kin Museum of Contemporary Art in Kiruna.

The exhibition at Kohta is realised with support from the Nordic Cultural Fund, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Sámiráđđi/the Saami Council.