Asle Nilsen
In a month, in three days, in twenty years, we will have the sun in our pockets
The Window Room and the Cabinet
13.04.23—28.05.23

Nilsen's work with oil painting is a lifelong project. Central to the work is a goal to achieve a concentrated presence within an unpredictable painting process. Since starting as an artist 45 years ago, he has tried to bring about a state where colours, strokes, and structures merge into a larger whole. The paintings explore an interplay where components flow into each other and continuously overlap, shift, and manifest themselves.

Scratch marks, pigment dust, and accumulations of paint are retained as traces of the physical process. Nilsen works primarily with large canvases, relating directly to movements of the body and its usage in the painterly. With a focus on a painting's own "will", minimal sketching is done beforehand. The surfaces oscillate between impenetrable swathes of colour with a mind of their own and impulsive brushstrokes.

In the paintings presented in this exhibition, one can glimpse figures with a starting point in nature: a tree stump, a peninsula, or an entire landscape. But as forest terrain and sea views stretch beyond our field of vision, the motifs are unfinished. The recognizable is replaced by abstract shapes and large colour fields. The motifs oscillate constantly between appearing and disappearing.

Attention is instead directed to the presence of the painting itself. Through his work as artistic director in the multidisciplinary art group Verdensteateret, Nilsen often works in stage spaces and site-specific productions. A form of spatial thinking also appears in his own practice. The images become a kind of report from a special existence that cannot be expressed in any other way than through the painting.

Asle Nilsen (b. 1959) lives and works in Oslo. Primarily working with painting, he also works with installation and multimedia projects. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo in 1984. His paintings have been exhibited at NoPlace, Galleri Blaker Skanse, Galleri Heer, Kampen Visningsrom, Trafo Kunsthall, and Bontelabo. Together with Lisbeth J. Bodd, he founded the art collective Verdensteateret in 1986 for which he has since been artistic director. With Verdensteateret, he has had exhibitions and productions at venues such as The National Art Museum of China, National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow, and Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. In Norway, the group has shown work at, amongst others, Henie Onstad Art Centre, Black Box Theater, and Bergen International Festival.

This exhibition is supported by Arts and Culture Norway.