For Kiosken at Älvsjö gård
By piecing together small slices of homes, lives and moments, Anine Aasen’s paintings and prints drop us into familiar yet strange worlds. With teacups found in thrift stores, a lampshade from her bedside table, and the fleeting moment of a plant casting a shadow – these intimate fragments of life are given a stage to become bright, energetic celebrations. Aasen’s work is ever changing, always in dialogue with itself and each other, slipping in and out of reality.
Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s words in The Waves, Aasen’s work is “continuously being made and remade”. Her practice is spontaneous, letting colours, forms and compositions slip into each other, and from each other. Her process is emergent. She is not afraid of risk, of failure or of changing temperament. She rides the waves, open to change as the work emerges. Changing with Aasen’s mood, and with her body, as she and the brush move across scenes, as the light in the studio changes.
Chromophobia, by David Batchelor, observes that “colour is dangerous, or it is trivial, or it is both”. Aasen reclaims colour, and with it these contradicting notions. If colour is to be seen as superfluous ornamentation, then Aasen’s work rejoices in this. If colour is ‘dangerous’ – associated with the feminine, emotions, queerness, the infantile - then Aasen creates a playground for them.
Much like a cluttered thrift shop, or a family library, Aasen works from a treasure trove of references, sourced from art history books, fabric patterns, wallpaper designs and personal surroundings. Certain details repeat themselves, working and re-working themselves through the canvases. A pattern from a plate can repeat itself perpetually, growing to become a frame for another object. These a-chronological references, or moments, compete and jostle and gossip and bond in their new home.
Anine Aasen (b.1992) is currently taking her master at The Art Academy - Department of Contemporary Art in Bergen. She finished her BA there in 2020, and then went to the Writing Academy in Bergen. She is from Nesodden, a small place outside of Oslo.
