Om Hundrede Aar Er Alting Glemt

Installation shots from Om Hundrede Aar Er Alting Glemt,

Haugesund Billedgalleri/Haugesund Kunstforening,

11 January to 3 February 2013

Kindly supported by Culture Ireland

Om Hundrede Aar Er Alting Glemt

Installation shots from Om Hundrede Aar Er Alting Glemt

Haugesund Billedgalleri/Haugesund Kunstforening

11 January to 3 February 2013

Kindly supported by Culture Ireland

Dead Dog Farm

Gallery view
"Exhibit A"
ink on canvas 2011
"Fire Walk With Me"
found objects 2011

"Exhibit B"
lambda print on dibond 2011

Gallery view

Dead Dog Farm

"Pus"

stills 2011

digital video 2011
gallery view

Remains

REMAINS

Magnhild Opdøl

Roscommon Arts Centre

Ireland

Opens Friday 17th June 5pm - 7pm

Exhibition continues until 14th July

www.roscommonartscentre.ie

Place Gallery, Gorey, Ireland

Installation shots from the exhibition in Place.

Director in Place is Juliana Walters

Curator is Paul Murnaghan

Mobius Circle

Exhibition view from Place in Gorey, Ireland. More to come when I've taken more photographs.

www.place.ie

Are we not sad?

In the cartoons of Tom and Jerry, no one ever dies. Sticks of dynamite are forced into orifices, a head is squashed in a sandwich toaster, a piano drops from on high, but no one ever dies. Tom may ascend with harps and angles but we can be sure that he will miraculously return to continue the endless struggle, to strategize, run and endure. There is no moment of recess, of consideration or stasis where we might engage in the contemplation of their hectic existence or their final end. But then this was not intended as some ontological platform, for a few moments the reality of existence is suspended and we laugh as his tail catches in the mangle that slowly reels him in.

The essence of this humor is evident within Mobius Circle. At times Opdøl hints towards a Hanna - Barberaesque reflection on mortality as contrast to the realism with which she renders the stark process of life and death. A comedic cultural reference, as salve to the elephant in the room. This consideration may be a product of distance from her home country, as it finds many parallels in the Scandinavian sense of humor and it’s morbidly, beautiful myth. A region where Trolls with a fondness for pet bears and the company of princesses, will also rape and consume human flesh. Opdøl’s cultural identity and experience is ever present in her practice, as she plainly states in the accompanying text, “growing up on a farm, life and death is an everyday occurrence”. This is not to say that the work is devoid of sympathy. The presence of humor is scant but generous, a recognition of it as a human device for coping and continuing. The treatment of the drawn subjects is imbued with an obsessive empathy, each hair, each feather, still resonates past breath. At times, it seems that the presentation of these chosen animals in their new, much extended life as art, is a gift that alludes towards the religious beliefs that support our ability to live with what we know.

This collection of works at Place employs several art disciplines ranging from installation, bronze casting and drawing, to Opdøl’s first use of video documentation. It is an evolving process wrestling with ethereal substance. The title stretches further into the intangible by engaging with mathematical theory, referencing the peculiarities of the Mobius strip, which can be described as a continuous, non-orientable band. It has a very curious property, if a line is drawn from the seam down the middle to meet back at the same seam, it will somehow always end up at the "other side".

Paul Murnaghan

Exhibition Opening in Draiocht

"Lucky Charm" pencil and ink on paper, 2010

You are invited to the preview of

Magnhild Opdøl

Three Birds and a Rabbit

On Friday 4 June 2010 at 7.00pm

Exhibition continues until 28 August 2010

Draiocht, Blanchardstown, Dublin

www.draiocht.ie