The three boxes from the PURKINJE SERIES presented in this exhibition have long and thin branches stretching outwards. When the upper and lower part of the boxes slides apart, a gilded, hollow room is exposed in the middle.
Each box is the size of a reluctant forest feline. Like the cat, the box parts resists being held calmly in your arms.
Standing on the pedestall, however, the thin branches rests confidently against the surface in each end.
The box itself, the center of the artifacts, is lifted a few centimeters up from the surface.
The gray-yellow-white aspen wood is saturated with white pigmented wax. Velvety and room-tempered under the fingertips. The interior in the boxes and the ends of the branches are gilded and seems harder and cooler to touch.
Each box is carved from one single piece of aspen wood, felled on the farmstead Guvihaug in Nordagutu. Slowly – over 500-600 hours per box – are the form teased out by hand, in close negotiation between wood and artistic intention.
Where: Foajegalleriet, Campus Notodden, USN
Who: Research Group for Artistic Research, Collective exhibition
When: September 22 – Oktober 22, 2021
Marte S. Gulliksen - Researcher, Artist, Teacher 