A work of art is the perfect gift for someone you care for. In this month's selected works we are highlighting works in the piece range below 10 000,- Nok.

All works sold as gifts in December can be exchanged into other artworks or changed into giftgards until the 15th of January 2023.

Andrea Scholze (b. 1988, Oslo) is educated at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (BFA, 2011, MFA, 2016).

Scholze works sculpturally and on installation pieces, primarily using ceramics. Her works are roughly modelled with an expressive, often bleak look. She creates scenographic installations of often dystopian landscapes where her individual sculptures of human-like species often looking more like trolls, golems or yetis, channel emotions and tell stories. She is interested in how both animals and humas exist together in today’s society and themes such as loneliness, existentialism and belonging are apparent in many of her sculptures.

Lars Morell (b. 1980, NO) is educated at the Oslo National Academy of Fine Arts.

Over the past few years, Lars Morell has created a complex and diverse body of work consisting of photographs, sculptures, and installations. Morell’s work has always encompassed and questioned the visible/invisible and what seems to be something that it is not. In numerous exhibitions nationally and internationally this iconography has been thoroughly developed, and in his recent works distorted shapes, which now “grow” over the canvas, are constructed from imagery in his previous works – paintings, sculptures and drawings. We see colored constructs that at first glance are reminiscent of branching root systems; we recognize the outlines of chains and hooks – and thus again objects that are used in illusion and deception. Morell develops these works out of figuration and sees them as distorted still lives, as a dilemma between abstraction and representational painting.

Bjørn Båsen (b. 1981, Eggedal, Norway) has a BA from The Arts Institute at Bournemouth and an MA from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts.

Båsen’s works invite the spectator into a whole new world. His skillful perspectives make one feel as though you could take a leap and fall into his illusion of a blissful wonderland. However, in his world of porcelain puzzles, cracks are always present and propped with references to deep and often dark matters. Båsen’s oeuvre is filled with references to mythology, past and present decadence – the fairytales of former glory meet the realism of today.

Kaja Dahl (b.1984, Oslo) has a master's degree in Design for Luxury and Craftsmanship from ECAL in Switzerland and a bachelor's degree in Product and Interior Design from Beckmans College of Design in Stockholm.

She works with various materials such as raw stone, terracotta, glass and porcelain, and creates sculptures that respond to a desire to enhance the sensual relationship humans have with the natural materials around them. With techniques that cross between craftsmanship and product design, Dahl creates unique and tactile works with a characteristic aesthetic sensibility. Dahl has been based in Oslo since 2019 after a number of years with design-related projects and residencies abroad.

Sebastian Helling (b. 1975, London) received his BA from the London College of Printing (2001) and has a double MFA from the Royal College of Art in London (2003) and the Oslo Art Academy (2011).

Helling’s work with painting and drawing is neither abstract nor figurative, neither gestural nor compositional. Layers of artistic languages overlap and deny each other. In the same spirit, his wish for communication (or anti-communication) is trapped within the relevance of the artwork. What we are presented with, then, are explosive drawings and canvases with splashes of paint and text, sometimes spray painted on, at other times applied with a brush and then stroked and smudged with his fingers. It is this tension between the positive and the negative that allows him to focus his work on the final outcome rather than a specific narrative or particular reference point - rather, they are embodiments of Helling's constant tearing apart and building back together again, an endless cycle of nature.

Sverre Bjertnæs (b. 1976) and Bjarne Melgaard (b. 1967) are two of Norway's most prominent contemporary artists. Bjertnæs is born and raised in Trondheim, and started as Odd Nerdrum's art school as a teenager. His first solo exhibition was in Melgaard's gallery Norsk Anarkisk Fraksjon (NAF) in 2000. Later on, Bjertnæs and Melgaard collaborated closely and frequently while they shared studios in New York, and had four exhibitions together during this period. One of these was named "one of the most interesting exhibits of the year" by the New York Times. Bjarne Melgaard studied at Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo, the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht, and Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, and is often regarded as an expressionist in the tradition after Edvard Munch.

Bjertnæs and Melgaard's strong personalities uncompromisingly chase separate artistic goals. In the artists' sought after collaborations, their individual and distinct artistic expressions enhance each other. The end result is raw and sensitive images where you can easily distinguish them as individual artists, which at the same time work surprisingly well together.