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Kaare Ruud
7–9 October 2022
Address: Galleri Nef, Rusthållarvägen 95, 128 43 Bagarmossen
Vernissage: Friday 7 October 17–21
Artist talk: Saturday 8 October 16.00 (in English)
Opening hours:
Saturday 8 October 13–17
Sunday 9 October 11–15
Kaare Ruud’s solo exhibition {@} displays several small-scale sculptures created from dried roses and accompanied by the artist’s texts. The small withered flower-figures resemble human forms. The primary function of the roses has been removed as the sculptures’ physical appearance and their different postures transform them into another form of existence.
The works create imprints of easily evaporating feelings and emotions, a sort of momentary expressions brought to life by personal and autobiographical motivation. Being so, they are not only poetic manifestations of the artist’s state of mind, but also anchors of the moments in which they were created – relics of ‘remembering’, in possession of all the essential features of the memory.
Roses and at the same time personified objects; these figures simultaneously show their dual nature: one of the past, when they still were beautiful roses, and the current one, where they have become metaphors left alone in their solitude, between the terrestrial and celestial, destined to vanish. Their presence in the space, as well as the poetic textual elements together create an eulogy and a wandering in Kaare’s universe, leaving us with questions and contemplation on life, traces of being, memories, presence, absence, and everything in between.
The exhibition is curated by Edit Fándly
KAARE RUUD (b. 1993, Gausdal) is an artist based in Oslo. He holds a BA from the Art Academy in Bergen and an MFA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts in 2020. He works in various mediums, such as sculpture, installation and text. Thematically, he is interested in concepts such as time, memory, nostalgia, durability and language. In addition to other methods, he works mainly with these notions and concepts by recontextualising utility objects that have an attraction to the past that is constantly returning to the limelight as ‘trendy’. Or to use everyday objects or elements from our immediate surroundings, field with meanings. As he stated: “By working abstractly with utility objects that have a nostalgic or personal value to me, I question what appropriation of class identity means. Working autobiographically opens a portal for me which I use to depict structures in society through poetry and visual devices and with this I want to give language to objects that do not have a body.”
GALLERI NEF is a studio and exhibition space located in Bagarmossen, Stockholm. Initiated in 2020, it was founded with the objective of giving shape to diverse practices and providing an accessible diffusion platform to emerging artists. We house six studio spaces and a gallery. Nef was co-founded by Lucie Gottlieb and Tomas Sjögren.
PHOTO DOCUMENTATION
Flat Octopus 