CV
Erlend Evensen, born 3. 1. 1996
EDUCATION
2015-2020 KABK (Royal Academy of Art) Den Haag, BA in Fine Arts-
2018 UMPRUM, Czech Republic (Erasmus exchange)
2013-15 Finished High school as Privateer, painting in Studio full time
2012-13 Tangen (High school), Kristiansand, Aesthetic studies-
2010 SVA New York, Course in Animation-
EXHIBITIONS
December 2019, Note to Self, Billytown Den Haag (group show)
September 2019, Transfer, Bykle Valle Kunstlag (group show)
November 2018: Stipendutstillingen, Agder kunstsenter
August-februar 2018-19: Painting Ekko av byen exhibited in Theatre, Kristiansand
Oktober 2018: Ting/Rom, Søgne Gamle Prestegård (Group show w Tormod Ropstad og Jørgen Aurebekk)
September 2017: Forsvinningspunkter , Agder kunstnersenter Kristiansand (First solo show)
August 2016: Pop-up Exhibition, Østre Strandgate, Kristiansand.
September 2015: Sørlandsutstillingen, Bomuldsfabrikken Arendal (Group show)
August 2015: Ekserserhuset, Kristiansand (group show w Trond Nicolas Perry, Ørjan Moen)
PRESS(All in Norwegian)
subjekt.no/2017/10/10/jeg-begynte-a-male-for-alvor-da-jeg-var-tretten-ar/
www.fvn.no/kultur/i/zmpPv/-Kunstanmeldelse-Energisk-malertalenthttps://
www.fvn.no/kultur/i/Xy86x/Jeg-spiser-Kristiansand-og-spyr-det-utover-lerretet
THOUGHTS ON MY WORK
My name is Erlend Evensen. I am a visual artist, born in Norway, 1996.
My art is about… It's tricky to describe my artistic practice in a condensed manner. It shoots out in all kinds of directions and places, as i feel it should. I find that i’m a different person every day, with different perspectives and colours. Therefore my work takes on many different and perhaps contrasting forms. It is not an option to choose one of these paths and follow it, because I need to constantly escape from each into the other. The result is a garden of very different works growing at different speeds. One day i’m in a silly campy mood, other days a deeply spiritual one, then angry or sad. This multitude of moods on different days are reflected in very different looking things, but all sprung out from that single point “me” whatever that is.
Yet the work is much bigger than myself, it spans 1000s of years and I am just one agent currently shaping and directing ancient poetic energies in perhaps new ways, much like plants. It’s really a dialogue, or polylogue with the past, the future, the physical, the metaphysical, the known and the unknown.
Art is both playing and practicing magic; The creation of something new out of material, which transcends that material. Going through all that I do is a general fascination with magic, I define magic as the power to reach reality in its most fundamental level and then to manipulate it to ones desire. I suppose there’s a general desire for conquering the elements, both the four natural ones, as well as the poetic or intellectual elements beneath.
This manifests itself into Paintings, Drawings, Animation, writing, Performance, and in time, my ambition is to go further into cinema
Painting is one of the main branches, which itself splits into many sub branches. I do landscapes, portraits, larger scenes. The inner vision wants out. The play is in the doing. Two paintings are never quite the same, neither in how they come to me, nor how they are crafted, or what they mean. To make a comprehensive definition of what I paint is therefore impossible. But i think this is all coded within the work itself. Some work deal with subconscious scenes, dreams, others with capturing tactile sensual reality on the flat canvas surface and the problems that brings, the alchemical de-and subsequent reconstructing of the elements. On the other hand deconstructing spaces, rooms within rooms is also an ongoing process. The mental perception of space, how we are present both in physical and mental spaces at all times, and how these relate in an organic way through our perception.
Theres a limit to what story a painting can tell and which parts of reality and unreality it can manifest. This is where my animation and film experiments come into play. With movement and cuts another world has opened. I wrote my thesis on silent movies and their relations to alchemy, in allegory as well as the technical mechanics. How did we get to capture moving images and subsequently invent visual storytelling? Now 100 years later theres a new way of filmmaking hidden within the strange origins to be explored.
I like toying with various aesthetics and putting them in fusion or vision against each other; Symbolism, realism, cubism, baroque, archaic, gothic, industrial rusty, psychedelic trips and so on. In fact, internally, my artistic practice bears little difference with playing with toys or drawing as a kid. I wanted to build lego one day, then dress up the next, then go to the sea or the woods. I would play with cowboy playmobil alongside pirates and spacemen, then i might introduce some plasticine monster to the mix. Playing with different toys in the same sandbox even if they are far apart in linear terms, that doesn’t matter. It would make little sense for me to simply paint landscapes, or simply animate clay monsters, these are both lurking in the great cosmic web.
I have on one hand been very concerned with so-called earthy reality and capturing that, maybe as a confirmation of it. On another hand I’ve for many years now delved into the symmetrical, sacred mental spaces, portals for meditation, clean unmixed colours, simple geometrical shapes bound by complex patterns and rhythms. Very much inspired by gothic cathedrals, I suppose that’s what I ultimately want to make. A church for god.
My name is Erlend Evensen. I am a visual artist, born in Norway, 1996.
My art is about… It's tricky to describe my artistic practice in a condensed manner. It shoots out in all kinds of directions and places, as i feel it should. I find that i’m a different person every day, with different perspectives and colours. Therefore my work takes on many different and perhaps contrasting forms. It is not an option to choose one of these paths and follow it, because I need to constantly escape from each into the other. The result is a garden of very different works growing at different speeds. One day i’m in a silly campy mood, other days a deeply spiritual one, then angry or sad. This multitude of moods on different days are reflected in very different looking things, but all sprung out from that single point “me” whatever that is.
Yet the work is much bigger than myself, it spans 1000s of years and I am just one agent currently shaping and directing ancient poetic energies in perhaps new ways, much like plants. It’s really a dialogue, or polylogue with the past, the future, the physical, the metaphysical, the known and the unknown.
Art is both playing and practicing magic; The creation of something new out of material, which transcends that material. Going through all that I do is a general fascination with magic, I define magic as the power to reach reality in its most fundamental level and then to manipulate it to ones desire. I suppose there’s a general desire for conquering the elements, both the four natural ones, as well as the poetic or intellectual elements beneath.
This manifests itself into Paintings, Drawings, Animation, writing, Performance, and in time, my ambition is to go further into cinema
Painting is one of the main branches, which itself splits into many sub branches. I do landscapes, portraits, larger scenes. The inner vision wants out. The play is in the doing. Two paintings are never quite the same, neither in how they come to me, nor how they are crafted, or what they mean. To make a comprehensive definition of what I paint is therefore impossible. But i think this is all coded within the work itself. Some work deal with subconscious scenes, dreams, others with capturing tactile sensual reality on the flat canvas surface and the problems that brings, the alchemical de-and subsequent reconstructing of the elements. On the other hand deconstructing spaces, rooms within rooms is also an ongoing process. The mental perception of space, how we are present both in physical and mental spaces at all times, and how these relate in an organic way through our perception.
Theres a limit to what story a painting can tell and which parts of reality and unreality it can manifest. This is where my animation and film experiments come into play. With movement and cuts another world has opened. I wrote my thesis on silent movies and their relations to alchemy, in allegory as well as the technical mechanics. How did we get to capture moving images and subsequently invent visual storytelling? Now 100 years later theres a new way of filmmaking hidden within the strange origins to be explored.
I like toying with various aesthetics and putting them in fusion or vision against each other; Symbolism, realism, cubism, baroque, archaic, gothic, industrial rusty, psychedelic trips and so on. In fact, internally, my artistic practice bears little difference with playing with toys or drawing as a kid. I wanted to build lego one day, then dress up the next, then go to the sea or the woods. I would play with cowboy playmobil alongside pirates and spacemen, then i might introduce some plasticine monster to the mix. Playing with different toys in the same sandbox even if they are far apart in linear terms, that doesn’t matter. It would make little sense for me to simply paint landscapes, or simply animate clay monsters, these are both lurking in the great cosmic web.
I have on one hand been very concerned with so-called earthy reality and capturing that, maybe as a confirmation of it. On another hand I’ve for many years now delved into the symmetrical, sacred mental spaces, portals for meditation, clean unmixed colours, simple geometrical shapes bound by complex patterns and rhythms. Very much inspired by gothic cathedrals, I suppose that’s what I ultimately want to make. A church for god.