1. born in the U.S.A/ oil on vinyl record/ 2022
growing up in the US; born in the USA, was one of my all time favorite songs. The 1984 hit by Bruce Springsteen describes a Vietnam War veteran who returns home to desperate circumstances and few options. Listen only to its refrain, though, and you could mistake it for a celebration of patriotism. As a kid, it was all about fun and coolness to be born in the USA. I used to play outside with my blue jeans on and my walkman, listening again and again to this song. Walking, music and the feeling of being born in the USA was hope, dreams and freedom.
However, The image isn’t a celebration of America, it’s just an honest look at it the way I remembered; walking around and listening to music so far away from the actual meaning of the text. Few album covers have epitomised a record in the same way as Born In The U.S.A. captures American life, this was my life?
2. Norway in a jar/ oil in a jam jar (Norgesglasset; Norway glass jar) / 2022
.The famous jam jar, with its characteristic “Norway” logo, revolutionized Norwegian food culture when it came on the market in 1902. For the first time in history, one could easily preserve food so that they could eat it all year round. 75 million glasses have been produced. “Norgesglasset” is something everyone owns in Norway, and it eventually also has become a part of the Norwegian language as a term for jam jars used for canning. Remembering my grandmother making jam as I child in the summertime when I visited her from the US, she used to stand in the kitchen, slowly pouring the warm jam carefully into the glass jar. I read “Norge” (=Norway, in Norwegian) and asked her, why does it say that? She said because they are made in Norway. Preserving my own memory of Norway in the glass, I painted inside one of my childhood walks with grandma in the forests, picking raspberries, for the Norway jam glass jar. I guess it is Norway in a jar?
3. Have a Coke and a smile)/oil on Coke/2022
My subjective self is figuring out how I entered a completely different consumerist atmosphere from the natural one I grew up in. But, also how I didn’t just grow up in pure nature, showing it to be an idealized memory of the past, as I know that I was surrounded by coke and a smile. The artwork is a way of figuring out and a reasserting of power to conflicting interests, between consumer behavior and our natural instincts of being a part of nature.
4. untitled (in search of lost time) iii/ painting installation / oil on wood panel & Asbjornson & Moe fairytale book/ 2022
5. Out on a trip, never grumpy/ oil on Kvikk-Lunch (“Norway’s outdoor trip chocolate”) / 2022
out on a trip, never grumpy (ut på tur, aldri sur) is a typical Norwegian expression. This is a quote that stuck to me when moving here as a teenager from the US. This chocolate is famous in Norway for being used when out walking or skiing in the mountains. The slogan is «Norway’s hiking chocolate, or hele Norges tur sjokolade» My memory of this chocolate was feeling very Norwegian eating it outdoors. I started to paint on top of it as a layer to my memories of trips when eating it. Was I more Norwegian eating this chocolate? I felt so at the time
6. molding a timeless heart)/ play-doh on checkered tablecloth/2022