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15/9/2001

Olav Christopher Jenssen

Anthony Wilkinson Gallery, London

We are pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in the UK of work by the Norwegian painter Olav Christopher Jenssen. The show will include new paintings, and a series of drawings recently shown in his exhibition 'The Empty Drawing Room' at Kunstverein Gottingen and Oldenburger Kunstverein, Germany and Sonderjyllands Kunstmuseum, Denmark. Jenssen is one of Norway's best known artists and has exhibited in many major shows internationally including Documenta IX, Kassel, and solo shows at Malmo Konsthall, and Astrup Fearnley Museum for Modern Art, Oslo. Last year he was the selected artist for the prestigious Bergen International Festival with a solo exhibition at the Bergens Kunstforening. He has lived and worked in Berlin since 1982.

Jenssen uses a variety of different media and materials, themes and motives.. Although Jenssen is best known for his paintings, every practice he uses, painting, drawing, sculpture, is equally important to him, his intimate drawings and monumental oil paintings, have equal value. His studio in Berlin bears testament to this with a variety of work always in progress and often his works develop into a series around certain formal concepts. The drawings are made with pastel, gouache, charcoal or crayon, the varied pictorial form and techniques, from underlined and coloured text, dotted and sweeping lines, coloured spaces, to systematic grids and circular formations, captivate by their simplicity. Some fill the page others seem half finished as if a half thought, but when the drawings are done they get sealed with a wax coating so they cannot be reworked. Each is signed with the artists name, date and place which becomes the title of the work, implying the form of a diary, although they do not allow themselves to be read as biographically motivated memories and associations.

The paintings often have an open, ambiguous expression, as though they touch something fleeting, enigmatic, that cannot really be grasped. Jenssen says that the paintings arise from the conditions of a particular situation, that they originate so to speak by themselves. He seems to place great trust in situation and process, in allowing things to develop spontaneously. "This is, of course, the most intimate presence I can imagine. Yet there is also a good deal of waiting connected with it, waiting for a special moment that makes it possible for things to develop. I have good time, I take good time, and there is a patience in the unrest that doesn’t require anything more than my presence".

Opening times: Thurs-Sat 11-6 Sun 12-6 or by appointment
Nearest tube: Bethnal Green Tube (Central Line)

Supported by Norwegian Embassy

For further information or photographs 020 8980 2662

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