Ann Iren Buan at Entrée

Artist: Ann Iren Buan

Exhibition title: Fade gently, embrace us

Venue: Entrée, Bergen, Norway

Date: June 19 – August 8, 2021

Photography: Bjarte Bjørkum / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Entrée, Bergen

Entrée is proud to present Falm varsomt, hold om oss (Fade gently, embrace us), a solo exhibition by Ann Iren Buan. The exhibition features a new series of sculptures that stretch in long lines from ceiling to floor, built up with multiple layers of plaster cast around metal chains and infused with various pigments such as red iron oxide, Prussian blue, and acid yellow. During the casting process, Buan strikes a fine balance of chaos and control, shaping her materials with strict precision while at times allowing them to unfold freely and solidify through expressions of chance. In several places, the pillars are broken up and linked with one another; they appear frail and vulnerable, yet, at the same time, remain commanding—even monumental—in their all-encompassing presence.

Buan’s point of departure is her own work, which she recycles and reformulates into new constellations, lending a dynamic quality to her sculptures and imbuing them with a sense of endless possibility. For the exhibition at Entrée, the materiality of Buan’s work engages in a close dialogue with the gallery’s distinctive architecture, its ever-present daylight, and its dramaturgical elements. While sculptural in form, the installation also pursues the outer limits of drawing as a medium, an enduring interest of the artist through which she addresses themes of fragility, decay, and degradation.

Ann Iren Buan (b. 1984, Stjørdal, Norway) lives and works in Oslo. She is a graduate of the Oslo Academy of the Arts; the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou; and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm. She has held solo exhibitions in Norway at Kristiansand Kunsthall, OSL contemporary, Vigeland-Museet, Prosjektrom Normanns, Gallery F15, Kunstmuseet Nord Trøndelag, and Kunstnerforbundet, and internationally at A Palazzo Gallery, Italy and Bazament, Albania. Buan’s work has also been presented in the exhibitions Human Touch at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; La Febbre at Palazzo Mazzarino, Palermo; and NN-A NN-A NN-A: New Norwegian Abstraction at the Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo and Stavanger Art Museum. This autumn, she will open a new solo exhibition at OSL contemporary.

Exhibition view, Ann Iren Buan, Fade gently, embrace us (2021). All photos by Bjarte Bjørkum