23.8. — 15.9.2024

For the past few years I have worked with fragments from nature, often drawings based on photographs and found objects, but also using the actual fragments and photographs in my work. I draw because I’m afraid to forget, and through the drawing I collect the places, thoughts, time and situations, both from where I found the image or object, and the time spent drawing it. Then I puzzle the fragments together to create a complete landscape.

For my drawings I process the photographs according to basic compositional principles. The photographs are then used to create pencil drawings, often leaving only the main motif on a white or black surface. The pictorial approach is realistic, but the motif is presented without an eye for a realistic reproduction of the object. Primarily looking to evoke a feeling, the object-composition is a vehicle. The sculptural works goes through a similar process, and I often add or change the material to create new associations to the objects. For each work I use the medium that most fits the idea. Some come from real places, memories, stories and images, while others exist in some place in popular culture or a collective visual vocabulary.

Magnhild Opdøl (b. 1980) lives and works in Sunndal, Norway and is educated at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin (2002-2007) and at Nordiska Konstskolan in Kokkola (2000-2002). Opdøl works in the tension between naturalistic compelling drawings and a cruel reality and the works on paper spills out into the room with sculptural works and objet trouvé. From her studies to the present day, the search for possibilities to show the invisible or overlooked has been an ongoing motivation. Motives are often inspired by day-to-day life and daily human interventions in nature and objects around us. The beginning of a work is marked by stepping back and rediscovering something that has long been familiar but do at the same time contain subtle references to art history. Recent exhibitions include: “Petrichor”, Haugesund Billedgalleri, NO (solo, 2023), “Med mjuke steg”, Møre og Romsdal Kunstsenter, NO (solo, 2023), “Drawing Time”, Royal Hibernian Academy, IRL (group, 2023-24), Trøndelagsutstillingen, NO and Vestlandsutstillingen, NO (group, 2023), “(alone at last)”, Galleri Box, Göteborg, SE (solo, 2021), “I almost forgot”, Galleri Ask, NO (solo, 2022), “we do not want to be us”, Norsk Skogmuseum, Elverum, NO (solo, 2021), “Holding my Breath”, Galleri Ö, Tjøtta, NO (solo, 2021) and “The last word”, Hå Gamle Prestegard, NO (solo, 2019).