Kristin Austreid at Entrée

Artist: Kristin Austreid

Exhibition title: A Peculiar Tool

Venue: Entrée, Bergen, Norway

Date: November 15 – December 22, 2019

Photography: Thor Brødreskift / all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Entrée, Bergen

Entrée is proud to present a solo exhibition with Kristin Austreid. In her new series of paintings, different objects and surfaces are put together in surreal compositions of overlapping layers. A prehistoric tool is placed next to a dilapidated stick. Through the back of a decorative pillow from a museum warehouse, we look straight at a dirty windowpane illuminated by the flash from a camera. Different perspectives and viewpoints are set up against each other, even in one and the same image. Curious connections are established between the paintings, which, through the unexpected motivates reflection, concerning the act of looking itself and the language of painting. The paintings lean towards the photorealistic, at the same time, formal and abstract qualities are given a clear focus. Trivialities like stains and traces, backsides or surfaces we usually disguise, are studied up close, and along with the shallow perspective, the physical surface of the painting seem present. The focus on details indicates a slow process where representation in painting and the ambiguity of things are measured against each other; the relationship between the flat and the spatial, proximity and distance, between looking at and looking into. As a result of this, more intimate encounters occur, where meaning and insignificance are not easily separated.

Kristin Austreid (b.1985, Haugesund) lives and works in Bergen. She holds a master’s degree from Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2014). Austreid’s work is both photorealistic and abstract, always concentrated on basic topics such as composition, color and shape. Her interest in optics, perception and the observing gaze are returning themes in her work. In addition to several solo- and group exhibitions in Norway, including at Galleri LNM, Kunstnerforbundet, Agder Kunstsenter, Bergen Kjøtt and Høstutstillingen, her work has been included in the collections of Oslo Municipality, Equinor’s Art Collection, Haugesund Billedgalleri and The City of Burgdorf in Switzerland. In 2016 she received The P: I: G Prize from The P: I: G Foundation v / Henrik Vibskov. She has participated in AiRs at, among others, Circolo Scandinavo, Rome (ITA), Gallery Svalbard, Longyearbyen (NO) and Die Fabrik, Burgdorf (CHE).