ØRNULF OPDAHL
LANDSCAPES OF THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

29th November 2019 - 18th January 2020
Preview: Thursday 28th November, 6-8pm

Exhibition closed for Christmas from 22nd December - 1st January inclusive.

Norwegian artist Ørnulf Opdahl is one of the foremost artists working in Scandinavia today. His atmospheric, lyrically-charged paintings draw on the dramatic and contrasting light of the rising fjords, islands, and wild seas of the Northern European coastlines. This exhibition brings together a new collection of watercolour paintings, a medium which truly highlights his ability to capture those luminous atmospheres through washed textures and incandescent colour.

The landscape of the Sunmore mountains and nearby fjords of Opdahl’s native Ålesund in Western Norway continues to move him greatly, in a symbiotic relationship as ever-evolving as the coastline itself. These lands have an intense power over the people that dwell there, vicious storms and avalanches a constant reminder of the mercilessness of nature. This intensity is truly present within Ørnulf’s paintings, in which the cliffs loom dark and weighty over the water, bright and ethereal shafts of light or snow penetrating their sky.

One is reminded of the Northern Lights, that abstract manifestation of invisible disturbances: whilst the contrast between ephemeral light and solid mountain in Opdahl’s loose but focused mark-making render the landscape almost abstract, there is a mystical poetry to his works that is clearly the influence of a landscape so dramatic that it can never be rendered exactly as it is seen in the moment. Rather, these watercolours capture an atmosphere or a sensation.

Born in 1944, Opdahl studied at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo, from 1962 to 1965 where he later taught, from 1985 until 1992. He has exhibited internationally, and his work is represented in many public and private collections including the Norwegian National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo; the Bibliothèque National de Paris; the Royal Palace; the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo and the British Museum, London.

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