Idun Baltzersen
Baderne / The Bathers
The Skylight Space
23.02.23—02.04.23

Social categories such as gender and eth­ni­city, sexual orien­tation and social class leave varying impres­sions on the art­world. Under these con­ditions Idun Baltzersen began to trace how a Norwe­gian-born identity can affect artistic choices. The sea as a physi­cal and mythi­cal pheno­menon became a unifying refe­rence for her. Through a long tradi­tion of image-making, our compre­hension of the sea encom­passes everything from ideali­sa­tion to fear induce­ment.

In a similar way, in the wood­cuts titled Baderne (The Bathers), Baltzersen leaves the bathing figures sus­pended between an appa­rent dis­com­fort and a deli­berate pose. She visualizes the figures as partially sub­merged in water or standing ashore on a collage-like beach environ­ment. Their body language signals an ambi­va­lence in the en­coun­ter with the uncon­trol­lable nature. As a sub­lime power, the unsett­ling forces of the sea are allowed to play out as undu­lating, rushing waves close by the some­what hesi­tant bathers.

In prepa­ration for the exhi­bition Baderne in the Skylight space, Baltzersen delved into the Swedish artist Eugène Jansson's images of bathers. The painting Flottans badhus (1907) parti­cularly set the tone. It hangs in the Munch Room at the Thiel Gallery in Stock­holm. Jansson lived at the same time as Edvard Munch, but his figures appear far more ideal­istic. Baltzersen is interested in how the nar­rative of Flottans badhus has shifted from being an ideal­ization of male bodies to being one of desire. Other works of signi­fi­cant inspi­ration for Baderne, are Munch's motifs of under­water swimmers. Anders Zorn's popular etchings of nude females in the archi­pelago of Stock­holm are also of rele­vance. Baltzersen's depic­ted figures are taken from archive photos of swim­ming teams and bathers.

The exhibition consists of richly colored wood­cuts placed in an archi­tec­tonic spiral. The viewer is invited in among these frame-mounted, head-height wood­cuts printed on textile. A series of small black-and-white wood­cuts with details high­ligh­ted in red is dis­played on the wall behind.

Baltzersen's work is charac­terized by experi­menting with various printing tech­ni­ques, res­pec­tively wood­cut and assem­blage on paper, textile, and wood. By using changing pers­pec­tives and monu­men­tal images, she chal­lenges the viewer's gaze and the physi­cal integrity of the room.

Idun Baltzersen (b. 1987, Trondheim) has studied at the Art aca­demy in Bergen and Konst­fack in Stock­holm, where she has lived since 2011. Baltzersen has exhibited in several galleries and museums, the first time in Kunstner­forbundet in 2015 when her graphic works and artist books were shown in a duo exhibition with Guttorm Gut­torms­gaard. Her work is repre­sented in the Moderna Museet, Magasin III Museum for Contem­porary Art, Göteborgs konst­museum, Uppsala konst­museum and Hauge­sund Billed­galleri. Her work has been acquired by St. Olavs Hospital, the Norwegian Art Council, Trond­heim Munici­pality, among others.

The exhibition has received support from Regional project funds, Kunst­sentrene i Norge (The Art Centers in Norway).