A Circular Narrative of Time
In the exhibition, which includes nearly 90 photographs, Mette Tronvoll brings together the themes that have defined her artistic practice from the beginning. With her new series from Hidra, she explores coastal culture and nature, while also depicting the significant changes the island community has undergone. Here, the human-made and the natural world merge.
The legacy of the German photographer August Sander (1876-1964) is evident in Tronvoll's work. Sander’s life project Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts (People of the 20th Century) aimed to visually document a cross-section of German society during the Weimar Republic. However, unlike Sander's focus on various social classes, Tronvoll is interested in the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between humans and nature.
"I am concerned with humanity's connection to nature, Tronvoll explains. The essence of photography lies in time—the depiction of time over an extended period and into the timeless. Nature itself is a theme, serving as an expression of the timeless.”
The photographs in the Hidra series feature scenes of the sea and forests, human-made constructions such as houses and boathouses, and people in their environments both at sea and on land. Many of the subjects have been photographed multiple times, across different seasons and times of day. The date of each image serves as a reminder that time passes, but also that time, in its own way, comes back. Ideas about time and the timeless are presented as a circular narrative in the exhibition, which becomes a story of what it means to be at a specific moment in history while simultaneously living in the narratives of the past—and the future.
The exhibition pairs subjects from Hidra with a selection of Tronvoll's earlier and more recent works. One of her early series, AGE Women 25-90 (1994), depicts older women from Svorkmo in Orkland and younger women in New York, portrayed against a brown-red canvas. The difference between the two groups becomes clear through the way they have been photographed, with each woman depicted frontally and facing the camera. The portraits open up reflections on psychological, experiential, cultural, and generational differences and conditions.
In the series Age 2024, four of the younger women are photographed again against the same backdrop. Tronvoll has followed individuals through their lives over time, an approach also found in Sander's photographic practice. He also photographed the same people multiple times, years apart, documenting aspects of individual development. The portraits in Age 2024 are titled with the date they were taken, in the same way as the photographs from Hidra.
From the series New Portraits (2001), a selection of four portraits depicting mother and child has been made. It is the same women from the series AGE who have now become mothers. From the series Double Portraits (1997), a self-portrait is included that shows the time between two moments. It is an investigation of the famous French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson's (1908-2004) so-called "decisive moment". The older and new portraits visualize time, and in this way the works in the exhibition span different timelines: time that is now, time that has passed, and the timeless.
One of Norway's Leading Photographers
Mette Tronvoll holds a central position in Norwegian photography and has contributed to strengthening the position of photography as a serious art form in Norway. She works with analog color photography, a result of a meticulous and time-consuming process. From color negatives, work prints in A4 size are created, forming an essential basis for selecting the works included in the exhibition. Selected images are then produced in large format in the darkroom. The collaboration with the German Dagmar Miethke has been crucial in the production process. Miethke is known for her many years of experience and expertise in the production of analog color photography and has had a close working relationship with Tronvoll since the 1990s.
About the Artist
Mette Tronvoll’s works have been exhibited at prestigious institutions both nationally and internationally, including the National Museum in Oslo, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Künstlerhaus Bethanien Berlin, SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne, and the New York Public Library. Her works are represented in prominent collections such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The New York Public Library in New York, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the National Museum in Oslo, the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo, KODE in Bergen, and Kunstsilo in Kristiansand.
The exhibition at Kunstsilo marks Tronvoll's first museum exhibition in Norway in over 10 years.
Kunstsilo thanks the AKO Foundation for their generous support of the exhibition.
