This summer, Hordaland Kunstsenter hosts an extensive solo exhibition by Bergen-based artist Elke Karnik, transforming the space into a rich habitat of creatures and stories. The exhibition features a diverse collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, and a video, providing a comprehensive overview of Karnik’s work and experimentation in recent years.
Throughout her artistic career, Karnik’s work has been closely tied to her personal journey and formative moments in her life. Memories from her childhood in post-war Germany, her art studies in Stuttgart and London, and her move to Bergen continue to shape her process. Her art is often anecdotal, driven by a strong interest in storytelling. With a distinctive emotional sensitivity, she delves into recognizable narratives while continuing to develop her own visual language.
In Vandring we meet a number of animals, both in drawn and sculptural form. Several of them are made from repurposed, sometimes found, materials. Karnik reuses and manipulates drawings on paper, scraps and bits, working with them until each finds its rightful place and purpose. In the exhibition we also encounter sculptures made of glass from broken beer bottles, melted and reshaped, and broken umbrellas that have been transformed into birds.
Karnik is especially captured by animals that live alongside humans, such as cats, birds, and dogs. In her depictions she explores the space between observations from daily life and fictional characters. The finished animal sculptures can also be read as portraits, or metaphors for situations and moods. Many of the figures in her exhibition are depicted in states of isolation, injury, or even death – yet several of the works have a playfulness about them.
Through experimental methods and repetition of themes, Karnik gives form to a state of vulnerability, that encompass fragility, loneliness, the absurd, and the tragic. Her emphasis on imperfection brings to light the tears, punctures, pains, and sorrows that are part of life.
ELKE KARNIK (1963) was born in Tübingen, Germany, and studied at the Staatliche Akademie der bildenden Künste Stuttgart and Chelsea College of Art & Design, London. She has lived and worked in Bergen for 20 years. Elke’s work has been presented in a number of solo and group exhibitions, including at Galleri Christinegaard, Kunstgarasjen and Visningsrommet USF in Bergen, Pelican House in London, Atelierfrankfurt in Frankfurt, Vestlandsutstillingen and Høstutstillingen. She is a regular guest teacher at the Kunstskolen i Bergen (KiB).
