ØRNULF OPDAHL
14th October - 19th November 2022

“We dream of travelling through the universe - but is not the universe within ourselves?”

Friedrich von Hardenberg Novalis, Miscellaneous Observations, 1978

Ørnulf Opdahl, one of Norway’s foremost artists lives on the island of Godøy on the sub-arctic west coast of the country. He knows the landscape inside out. He also knows the blizzards, the avalanches and the drownings at sea. Above all he knows the light, and often the darkness. As he has said, “I am sometimes accused of making dismally dark paintings. My response is that in order to paint the light, I have to make room for darkness”. As this implies he sees nature not as invariably benign but unstable, changeable and ominous.

This exhibition features watercolour paintings and lithographs, in a range of scales, showcasing Opdahl’s ability to capture a powerful and humbling poetic encounter with place.

The Island, Watercolour on paper, 15 x 23.5cm

Opdahl’s images of enigmatic Sunmøre mountains and fjords, are more concerned with resonance than representation. It is a landscape that he knows inside out, and through layers of watercolour and lithography, light refracts and splits for us to admire both its beauty and the intimate surface of the paper itself. They describe an encounter with a landscape that is sensitive and dramatic, romantic and dangerous.

As art critic William Varley describes:

“Opdahl’s mood paintings of the North, with their colours like dying embers of a fire - glowing umber, the greys of ashes and charcoal blacks, often have a sense of imminence: something is about to happen.”

His intense, lyrically charged work projects the sort of enkindled presence of the elements – earth and fire, wind and water – which is only to be encountered in the Far North.

As we journey into winter, this exhibition charts the sunlight waning, cloaking landscapes in veil-like new beginnings and star-lit skies. An offer to travel through the universe within ourselves.

Ørnulf Opdahl, born 1944, is one of the most important painters working in Scandinavia today. Opdahl lives and works on the island of Godøy on the west coast, near Ålesund, where he was born. Strongly influenced by the sublime sense of place so evident in the magnificent coastal landscape of his native Norway, Opdahl’s powerful, lyrically charged work draws upon stimulating currents from both his own Norwegian landscape tradition and the philosophical and spiritual concerns of post-1945 abstract art. Opdahl was professor at the National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo, from 1985 until 1992, where he continues to teach as a visiting professor. He has exhibited internationally, and his work is presented in many public and private collections including, for example, the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo; the Bibliothèque National de Paris; The Royal Palace; the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, and the British Museum, London.

WORK FOR SALE

More information coming soon…

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