Toril Redalen

Artist Statement

As an artist I use the material in different state of being in order to challenge and expand people’s perception of their surroundings and belongings. Using different approaches, I visualize the relationship between thought and the material present. Taking interest in spatial issues, I work with exteriors and interiors containing real and fabricated history. The symbolically charged beauty of nature, the expectations of total freedom; I am fascinated by the modern conception of nature and how this can create controversy. I also reflect on the fundamental Romantic feeling of loneliness that seems to be the concern of most contemporary representations of nature.

My work is driven by “being in” the process, with the primary motivation of exploring. My aesthetic hinges upon a minor de-contextualization of a thing or feeling so that it can be used a means for us to re-experience the familiar in a way that lets us see it again for the first time. My fulfilled work will have an introspective supple quality, like the way a mist shrouds and soften a form, giving it potential to slip just before you fully recognize it. I seek creation, with the material being able to embrace more than a faded cast of an action once happened. I am fascinated by the clays ability to be reused and transformed into future forms and ideas, in contrast to its hard and resistant state as ceramics.

In a world that seems to have fallen either apathetic or frenetic in wanting to make a difference, I hope my work is an honest reminder of the importance of the reality of dreams, and the necessity of feeling a little overwhelmed.

T.R 2010

*”The romantic, sentimental, mythological attachments accumulated in recent past have been necessarily shed like old skin. With this current generation of artists´works (post mid 1990´s); a cool re-evaluation of the intrinsic properties; history; social position; and physical nature of the medium are well underway. Material/Process as an integrated aspect of the concept; as a vehicle with which to make a critical statement, or take a particular stance of on an issue; from the artist`s personal position.”

R.Launder.