Nature Notes
The exhibition Naturnotater / Nature Notes brings together three distinct perspectives on nature, and its relationship with humanity. In different ways, the works explore how we seek to organise, exploit and understand the natural world, and what happens when its intrinsic value, diversity and constant change encounter human needs and ideas of value. Trees and wild plants give way to other forms of land use, while biodiversity is lost, along with values and ecological relationships, in ways we have yet to fully understand.
The ways in which we use and transform natural materials are also shaped by the value we assign to them. The predictable, standardised products of industrial society stand in contrast to the perspective of foraging traditions, in which overlooked plants may become food, medicine or dyes. Organic materials, however, do not necessarily behave as expected. When applied to the canvas, they change over time, calling for an openness to the unexpected and to variations in colour, texture and expression.
This sense of transformation is also reflected in the artistic processes presented in the exhibition. Nature grows, decays and changes, while motifs, materials and forms are reworked and brought together in new ways. Pigments shift in character, motifs are repeated and explored, and sketches are drawn, altered and reconfigured. Nature thus emerges not only as material and subject matter, but also as a way of thinking – something we seek to understand and shape, yet which remains in constant flux.
Silja Axelsen's Sketch for a Landscape II takes the ever-changing nature of the landscape as its starting point. Just as a pencil line can be drawn, altered or erased, the natural world is in a continuous process of transformation. In Sketch for a Landscape II, Axelsen explores how the openness and possibilities inherent in a sketch might be carried into fired clay, a material typically associated with permanence and completion.
The work consists of modules made from low-fired grogged clay and hand-knotted textile surfaces, arranged to form an initial composition. Throughout the exhibition, the modules can be moved and rearranged into new configurations. Visitors are invited to take part in this evolving sketch, shaping and reshaping the landscape as the exhibition unfolds.
The backdrop to Torine Helland's project is deforestation. The permanent removal of trees in order to make way for other industries is a serious crisis. Enormous amounts of CO₂ are released, and biodiversity and the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples are destroyed. In her artistic practice, Helland often works in series and with repeating motifs. In the exhibition Naturnotater/Nature Notes she presents the series Marked for logging. Helland's motifs are based on her own photographs as well as news images from Brazil. They show trees both from a distance and up close to the trunk. She moves in close to create intimacy, and shows the motif from a distance to give an overview. By taking time to explore theme and motif, she seeks to highlight nature's intrinsic value and thereby draw attention to environmental protection.
Torunn Skjelland's artistic practice revolves around painting in an expanded format, where the exploration of motif and different supports are central. In her works for Naturnotater/Nature Notes, Skjelland explores self-produced natural pigments harvested from her local surroundings: Blueberries from Østmarka, sea buckthorn and black chokeberry from her garden, and home-grown indigo.
Her interest in natural pigments was sparked during an artist residency in Togo in 2025, where she experimented with pigment from local clay and hibiscus flowers in a mural. Several motifs in Naturnotater/Nature Notes are drawn from this trip. Every morning she travelled through a tropical agricultural area on her way into the town of Atakpamé. The paintings are based on photographs from these daily journeys and are made with local clay and hibiscus flowers from Atakpamé, mixed with pigments from the artist's local surroundings in Oslo.
The limitations in both tonal value and colour give a more unpredictable and less controlled expression. The materials are alive, and the colours change during the process.
Photo documentation Nature Notes: Ole Amundsen.
