For her first solo exhibition in Norway, Helsinki-based artist Charlotta Östlund presents a new spatial installation alongside a group of smaller sculptures. Working through slow and meticulous processes, often with fragile organic materials, Östlund explores transformation, decay and renewal, and the different temporalities held within bodies, landscapes and matter.
At the centre of the exhibition is Gesture, an expansive yet almost imperceptible work that unfolds directly across the gallery walls. Made from dried, reinforced grass, its slender forms move across the surfaces and extend into the height of the space. Fleeting and provisional, the work has a quiet presence within the room.
Other works introduce a contrasting sense of permanence. Fragments of leaves and bodily forms emerge from smooth surfaces like traces, sediments or fossils. Together, the works move between presence and disappearance, fragility and endurance, suggesting the continuous processes through which matter is formed, altered and eventually broken down.
The exhibition coincides with the transition into autumn, when growth gives way to dormancy. Within this seasonal shift, Östlund’s quiet and precise works invite close attention to forms of change unfolding over a few months, a human lifetime, or millions of years.
Charlotta Östlund (b. 1973, Sweden) lives and works in Helsinki. She holds an MFA from Konstfack – University of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm (2000), specialising in ceramics and glass. Her work has been presented in solo and group exhibitions in Finland and internationally, and is represented in collections including Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki Art Museum, and the Finnish State Art Commission.
The artist is supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, Amos Anderson Fund and the Society of Swedish Literature in Finland.
