Sagstad, acrylic on canvas, 2015, Liv Valmestad
Northern Line Exhibition comes to U of M
The Northern Line Exhibition, curated and created by U of M librarian Liv Valmestad, is now on at the Dr. Paul H.T. Thorlakson Gallery in the Icelandic Reading Room.
Valmestad’s artwork is based from a trip she took to Norway in June of last year on the boat Richard With, part of the Hurtigruten Lines, an armada of ships that travel up and down the coast of Norway, carrying tourists and supplies for the small port towns.
What: The Northern Line Exhibition
When: On now until May 24, 2016
Where: The gallery is located on 3rd floor of the Elizabeth Dafoe Library in the Icelandic Reading Room.
Hours: M-F – 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
THE NORTHERN LINE
From the artist:
This body of work investigates the concept of mood painting and focuses on the Nordic summer night and the Norwegian arctic. Historically, mood paintings are a latter 19th century genre of Scandinavian landscape painting, which show a simplification of forms all blanketed in a diffused blue tonality – a special light found only at midsummer. I received funding to travel to Norway in June 2015 and sailed north along the coastline beyond the Arctic Circle, where I photographed and sketched the midnight sun and very unique light and landscape. These have subsequently been worked into larger paintings that range from recognizable landscapes to complete abstractions, during my sabbatical from the University of Manitoba. The work is also a conscious and physical exploration of line – the route of the Hurtigruten Line, with its network of boats traveling up and down the coast of Norway and the lines of vertical brushstrokes and texture “interfering” with the landscape and ultimately asserting itself as subject.