Crystal Clear Light
Dimensions Variable (DV) presents a two-person exhibition titled Crystal Clear Light, curated by Arnhild Sunnanå, and features the work of Margrethe Aanestad and Siv Bugge Vatne. The exhibition opens on July 29, 2023, 6—9 pm in the Main Gallery and runs through September 2023.
The Crystal Clear Light exhibition will revolve around nature and the universal mysteries in an abstract and subtle way. Creating sculptures, drawings, and paintings of materials like stone, wood, pastel chalk and pencil on paper both artists seek to materialize and visualize some of the many wonders of existence. We hope that their first duo exhibition will compose a meditative space where sensations and tactile dynamics between their artworks can vibrate. In these disturbing times, the curator aims to create an exhibition where people want to stay and contemplate, and hopefully feel the urge to come back several times.
We’re delighted to collaborate with international artists again. This is Aanestads third time exhibiting at Dimension Variable. She had a solo exhibition and residency in 2015 and participated in a group show in 2016. Aanestad’s works on paper, canvas, and stone drive our attention to dimensions like volatility and eternity through the material properties like tactility, weight, color, light, reflections, and alternations. Reminding us of arts’ ability to inform a continuous examination of our perceptual awareness of both ourselves and of the world.
One of Bugge Vatne´s contributions will include a body of drawings inspired by her longtime research of the Voynich manuscript. This fifteenth-century codex is also referred to as the world’s most mysterious book. Among her drawings are carefully selected parts of the illustrations contained in the Voynich manuscript.
Both artists are investigating the incomprehensible emotions and experiences that might be evoked by relating closely to nature. The unknown and mysterious is often referred to as the occult. On the contrary these two artists believe that these intangible aspects of nature are something that can be found everywhere and that can be expressed and visualized through art. Like details and revelations emerging through a crystal-clear light.
Special thanks to our sponsors. Crystal Clear Light—Margrethe Aanestad & Siv Bugge Vatne is made possible by the support of Stavanger City Municipality, Rogaland County Municipality and the OCA (Office of Contemporary Art, Norway).
Margrethe Aanestad
Margrethe Aanestad, born 1974 in Stavanger on the south-west coast of Norway, lives and works between New York City and Stavanger. Her practice encompasses mainly drawing, painting and sculpture in mixed media. Aanestad studied fine arts at the Rogaland Art College and later graduated from the University of Stavanger with a BA including art history and aesthetic philosophy. Aanestad has shown internationally where most recent projects include group exhibition at Yi Gallery, NY; solo exhibition at Utstein Monastery/ Museum Stavanger, Norway. Earlier projects include Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway; Torrance Shipman, New York; Dimensions Variable, Miami; Open Source Gallery, New York. Group- and duo shows include New York City, California, Miami, Costa Rica, Copenhagen and United Kingdom, in addition to multiple art institutions in her native Norway. Residencies include Residency Unlimited, NYC and Artists Alliance Inc., NYC. Her works are in private collections worldwide, and she has completed several private and public commissions both in Norway and USA, created artist books and collaborated with US-based fashion designer. Aanestad co-founded the artist-run gallery, Prosjektrom Normanns in Stavanger in 2011, which she co-directed until its closing in 2020.
Siv Bugge Vatne
Siv Bugge Vatne is a multidisciplinary artist, born 1975 in Molde on the north-west coast of Norway. She is educated at Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and lives and works in Oslo. Her main medium is sculpture but there are elements of installation, text, drawing and collage in most of her projects. Since 2018 she has worked with the ongoing project Humming. With Humming, the artist threads elements of nature and mystery into sculptural pieces that together create a poetic composition. Through this process, Siv Bugge Vatne explores possibilities for new ways of thinking and being that derive from her interest in nature, science and history. Sculptures from Humming has been shown at renowned galleries in Norway like Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Kunstnerforbundet and Nils Aas Kunstverksted, in addition Bugge Vatne has participated in group exhibitions at Norwegian art museums such as at Sogn og Fjordane Art Museum, KUBE and the National Museum in Oslo. Bugge Vatne has been selected for several prestigious public commissions in Norway, and her works are included in leading public collections in Norway.
Arnhild Sunnanå
Arnhild Sunnanå (NO) is working as an independent art historian, curator, art educator and writer. Currently she is engaged as an art consultant for a public art project in Stavanger. Sunnanå has her MA in Art History from the University of Oslo. She has a BA in Art and Cultural Science from the University of Stavanger (UiS), and a BA in Entrepreneurship UiS. Her former work experience includes business economics, human relations, and entrepreneurship. She lives and works in Stavanger and Oslo, Norway.
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