Press release (Galleri Heer 2005)
Galleri Heer (Oslo, Norway) has the pleasure of inviting you to the exhibition Eva Skaar – paintings 19 February – 13 March 2005
Towards the unrecognizable
On the 19 February Eva Skaar’s new exhibition of paintings opens at Galleri Heer in Oslo.
For a long time, she has challenged the borderline between the figurative and the non-figurative. Although her paintings have had a recognizable and concrete motif, her approach has always been abstract, based on the effects and the formal principles of a painting.
”While preparing for this exhibition, I have gradually moved towards the non-figurative,” Eva Skaar says. ”Other painters have done this a long time ago; to me it was new and liberating. Suddenly I could let go of the concrete object, as seen with our eyes, and work with paintings that do not refer to anything outside themselves. I could focus on colours, shapes, texture and composition; the important thing is what takes place on the surface of the painting.”
This exhibition includes both abstract sceneries and strictly composed non-figurative paintings. Thick layers of paint aim to imbue the shapes and colours with meanings of their own. The surfaces have been kneaded and scraped and worked with, producing a heavy fabric-like structure and a strong artistic expression.
”The effect of the paintings is important,” Eva Skaar says. ”The painting must be an organic totality where all elements are made to live and play together.”