S12 Gallery in Norway presents ‘Behold’ exhibition

Seven glass artists are participating in the ‘Behold’ exhibition at S12 Gallery, Norway, curated by Kari Håkonsen and Vidar Koksvik, which is on until 19 November 2023.

The two artists are showing their work alongside Cathrine Maske, Eirin Bjørsland Hansen, Julie Shirani Kausland, Karen Klim and Peter Sutton.

The foundation of Kari Håkonsen and Vidar Koksvik’s practice is blown, craft glass, where the material’s inherent properties also play a central role. Acquiring and developing technical skills has been a key element in expressing themselves as artists.

While the American glass artist Harvey Littleton said in the 1960s that “Technique is cheap”, he believed that an artist was freer when technique did not get in the way. For Kari and Vidar it has been the opposite; technique has made them free to say what they want with the material. In this exhibition, they have invited artists with the same approach to their art.

‘Behold’ shows works that ‘retain’ something in different ways, whether it is the shape of a vessel, interpretations of an original function or objects that utilise the glass’s abilities to play with light and colour. What all the artists have in common is that they are eager to know their material to the full and to investigate the possibilities of glass. However, at the same time, they want to investigate what potential lies in something as basic as a corpus, jar, vessel or other container.

Although all the works relate to retaining in different ways, the expressions are many and varied. Cathrine Maske’s latest series ‘Glasslaboratoriet’ combines blown, freehand shaped glass and found glass elements from the chemical industry. The translucent glass sculptures contrast with the exquisite colour gradation in Eirin Bjørsland Hansen’s ‘Phoenix’, which the curators describe as both a masterpiece and eye candy. Peter Sutton’s glass work is often part of an architectural context where the glass adds colour to the light and plays with light and shadow. For this exhibition, he has made a new, site-specific wall work, based on the vessel shape, as part of his residency in S12.

‘Behold’ is a continuation of the exhibition project ‘I & We’, which was shown in S12 in 2022, BWA Wroclaw, Poland 2023 and Rona Gallery, Lednicke Rovne, Slovakia 2023, and continues to build on S12’s desire to showcase Norwegian glass art.

S12 Gallery is at Bontelabo 2, 5003 Bergen, Norway. Website: https://www.s12.no/en/