VIGDIS HOLEN

ARTIST STATEMENT

Energy and tension is created by comparing and contrasting ideas, materials and colors. Images of opposites create balance. When I work visually, I prefer to take a critical position and through contradictions find the way to the empathic image. I find it meaningful to integrate work throughout the entire life and bring together the strong and the delicate, the masculine and the feminine, the practical and the abstract, philosophy and function. Contrasts clarify the diverse existence. I tend to embrace the very thing that repels me in order to understand it. And I prefer to focus on the meaning of the matter rather than to judge on unsound basis. By bringing the complementary together and let opposites meet, new can be created. In these works traditional techniques, new approaches and media communicate to create new meaning. The multidimensional quality allows them to exist in many media and languages simultaneously. The Spitzbergen project will extend beyond the exhibitions in Longyearbyen and develop into a global tour.