ChatGPT Selected works: February

2/1/2025

This February, QB Gallery focuses on drawing as a medium, one of the oldest and most fundamental forms of expression in art. The technical diversity of drawing gives artists a unique freedom to experiment and explore everything from precise details to bold, spontaneous movements. Tools such as pencil, charcoal, pastel, and ink offer a wide range of possibilities, and the medium is used both as an independent artistic expression and as a foundation for further work.

Among the artists at the gallery, we find various approaches to the potential of drawing. Some explore the figurative and surreal, like Bjørn Båsen, who combines drawing and painting in his intricate, dreamlike scenes. Others, like Randi Nygård, use charcoal to highlight the fragility of nature and create poetic, almost meditative expressions.

Drawing can also serve as a playground for light and shadow, as seen in Ingri Haraldsen’s works. Her pieces, inspired by nostalgic toys, combine technical skill with a subtle and playful expression. Martin Schreiner adds a more mysterious dimension with his drypoint engravings and line drawings, where the details invite the viewer into dystopian, fairytale-like universes.

With Håkon Siri, we encounter drawings inspired by contemporary pop culture, where humor and seriousness blend effortlessly. In collaboration with his fiancée, Maria Pasenau, he has created a series that reflects on Sami culture and personal stories with a raw, yet playful line.

Cecilia Jiménez Ojeda adds another dimension with her hyperrealistic pencil drawings, where everyday objects are transformed into works of art through extraordinary technique. Even the simplest subjects, like a toilet roll, gain a subtle dreamlike quality that speaks to the artist’s ability to breathe new life into the familiar.

This collection of artists demonstrates the vast range of drawing as a medium, from the detailed and realistic to the abstract and experimental. Drawing is not just a technique, but also a language – a form of communication that can be as complex as it is immediate.

Cecilia Jiménez Ojeda (b. 1982, Borås, SE) is a graduate of the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (MA, BA).

She works with detailed and realistic pencil drawings, often based on photographs. Her works frequently focus on details and fragments that usually escape our attention. The drawings are often placed within larger scenographic and narrative constructions inspired by episodes, experiences, and environments from her own life. Jiménez Ojeda explores strong contrasts between light and dark, which, combined with her chosen perspectives, create a mysterious atmosphere in her works. The fragments can evoke snapshots, still lifes, and crime scene photography, prompting viewers to draw parallels to their own lives and experiences.

Håkon Siri (b. 1992, Nesseby/Unjárga) is a Norwegian Kven Sea Sami with an Oslo dialect. He is a trained music producer specializing in sound engineering.

Over the past 16 years, Siri has established himself as a music producer within the field of electronic music. He and Maria Pasenau have collaborated on various exhibitions, including a sound piece presented during the exhibition The Odder Erotica in 2022 at Trafo Kunsthall in Asker.

Ingri Haraldsen (b. 1984, NO) is educated at the Oslo University College and the University of the Basque Country in Bilbao. She primarily works with drawing and installation. Mythological, psychological, and archaeological aspects of human existence are explored in many of Haraldsen's works. At the core lies the human drive to understand, gain perspective, insight, and knowledge, and how art can contribute to this. She has been acquired by, among others, the City of Oslo's art collection, Nordland County Municipality, Trondheim Municipality, and the Equinor Art Programme.

Haraldsen lives and works in Oslo.

Martin Schreiner (b. 1986, Fredrikstad) is an artist who has garnered significant interest since his debut at QB Gallery in 2015. Schreiner creates unique universes where mythical figures, historical and pop culture references, and intricate abstract patterns form the foundation for personal stories.

Randi Nygård (b. 1977, Bergen) holds a Master's degree from the Art Academy at NTNU in Trondheim.

She primarily works with drawing, collage, installation, and text. Climate and social structures are recurring themes in Nygård's works. In recent years, she has focused on scientific facts and hypotheses about what intersects society and the social with the forces and abilities of nature. Through three-dimensional collages, drawings, and installations, she visualizes her own hypotheses about the relationship between humans and nature. Nygård describes her works as visual models of complex and invisible relationships, drawing inspiration from natural processes, such as glaciers "breathing," the connection between our teeth and the ability to remember, and the fact that words with similar syllable patterns often represent things with similar visual forms. The question "What significance does art and culture have when climate and the environment are in dramatic change?" is particularly relevant to Nygård's practice, as she believes that art can serve as a tool for bringing forth rational facts and knowledge about the climate and environmental challenges the world faces.

Nygård is part of the international collaboration Ensayos, an interdisciplinary project where artists, social and natural scientists, and philosophers explore topics related to political ecology.

Bjørn Båsen (b. 1981, Eggedal) is educated at The Arts Institute at Bournemouth (BA) and the Art Academy in Oslo (MA).

Båsen's artistic practice invites the viewer into a unique universe full of references to mythology, past and present decadence, fairy tales, and realism. The immediate expression may reference Romanticism and Rococo, but at the same time, there are clear thematic references to today's society. Båsen paints the saga of Norway today while also pointing back to history. His works are both beautiful and grotesque, and this duality, combined with a strikingly realistic expression in a unique mythical visual world, places Båsen in a class of his own within contemporary art, as well as art history.

Båsen's works are part of numerous private and public collections, including the Astrup Fearnley Museum, KODE Art Museum, Nordenfjeldske Museum of Decorative Arts, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Grieg Art Collection, Equinor Art Programme, the City of Oslo's Art Collection, the City of Stavanger's Art Collection, and DNB's Art Collection.