I live and work in Oslo and have studied at The Academy of Fine Arts, Bergen and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam.

I work primarily with drawing, but also with photography, textile and installation. In my works I invite the viewer to intimate studies of Nature and of human intervention in Nature. My goal is to create a disturbance in our notions and suppositions of what Nature is, and of what is really natural – and for whom?

In my works I use a figurative visual language of landscapes, shapes and creatures. I introduce symbols from the history of art and documentary images and text in order to support and reinforce the expression.

The images spring from a sense of unrest but also one of humor. A basic issue is one of attraction and repulsion. At first, my drawings may be taken to be pretty studies of nature or still lives, until the viewer may sense that something is about to happen, or has already taken place.

In my work, our reflection of the world around us forms a central perspective. In light of the past, and anticipating the future, we choose our viewpoint in the present. But the world as interpreted through theory and supposition often proves to be different than the physical reality we experience through our senses. This creates fault lines where a blind zone appears between interpretation and experience. My works often exist in this blind zone. Here, new spaces and contexts open, less obvious than rational thought may provide. Often, the surreal confronts the familiar. The close and familiar is challenged, and what we believe changes character. Perhaps I am attempting in an absurd way to save the unsalvageable.

www.ingwillgjelsvik.no