Meet Kirsten Opstad
Meet Kirsten Opstad, visual artist who was on Residency with us in March!
During his stay with us, Opstad worked with fabric and watercolor, inspired by the different types of rock. The fusion of minerals, the traces of the ice age, traces of people who have worked in the mines here.
She herself writes about her stay:
"It was nice to commute between the director's residence and the studio at Velferden, with traces of the miners' workrooms. The mountains and nature. TIME inspired me. Thousands of years are hidden behind the different patterns in the stones I picked up in my backpack. I used reference books, admired science, studied symbols and signs, captivated by all the knowledge that exists. The fact that over the years it has been discovered that there is burning lava inside the earth!
I've always thought that the great monumental mountains are robust and can survive every little human life. The body is a fragile organism full of minerals. Calcium, phosphorus, potassium, sulphur, sodium, magnesium and iron. At Sandbekk, I saw how the mining and extraction of ore has made a major impact on the Ice Age landscape. Traces and imprints. Ingenious inventions and brutal interventions. How do we affect the environment we conquer? How does nature respond when we help ourselves, shameless and greedy. An unnatural wound. A change. An exotic landscape of man-made nature. Grains of sand cover large areas. Creepy fences demarcate sinkholes and deep mine shafts that are not safe for traffic. Few of us are blameless. Consumers. I use titanium white when I paint. I use titanium without even realizing it. While mountains are blown to smithereens. Man and mountain. I am a mountain. I am a human being."
Photo © Hanna Biørnstad and Kirsted Opstad
::::::::MORE ABOUT KIRSTEN OPSTAD:::::::
Kirsten Opstad (1978) is a visual artist educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo. She recently moved back to Jæren after 22 years in Tigerstaden. Opstad has participated in a number of exhibitions at home and abroad. Her work crosses genres and she mixes different techniques: painting, drawing and text, space installation and sculpture. Her surroundings influence her choice of materials, themes and expressions.
