Håvard Homstvedt - 2007

ABG Sundal Collier ASA is pleased to feature the work of Norwegian artist Håvard Homstvedt in this year’s annual report.

Håvard Homstvedt (b.1976) was born in Trondheim, Norway, and now lives and works in New York. He received his artistic education from Yale University School of Art (2003) and Rhode Island School of Design (2000). Recent exhibitions include Galleri Riis, Oslo (2007-08), Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo (2008), Southfirst, Brooklyn, NY (2005), Kantor/Feuer Gallery in Los Angeles (2006), and LA ART in New York (2007). Homstvedt will be featured by Galleri Riis in the Statements section of the Art Basel fair, 2008, and his works will be presented in Perry Rubinstein Gallery in New York, November 2008. Homstvedt lives and works in New York.

Characteristic for Homstvedt’s paintings is a heightened focus on the materiality and surface of the work. Painted in oil on canvas, Homstvedt’s compositions have a textile-like appearance. The paintings are woven together with strings of paint over time, allowing some areas to stand in relief to the rest of the surface. In doing so, Homstvedt seeks to draw attention to the painterly construction, staging possibilities through the fragments and characters depicted. Referencing outmoded image making methods and imagery, there is a sense of displacement in these works. In it’s cast of characters, as well as in the patterns employed, Homstvedt’s paintings traverse broad historical terrain to explore possibilities of narrative with a contemporary backdrop. The exhibition titled ”You Will Hardly Know” in Galleri Riis featured large and mediumsized paintings from the past year, as well as painted and patinated bronze sculptures which accentuated the three-dimensional qualities of the paintings. Homstvedt also showed, for the first time, a large wall relief in neon. Galleri Riis will on the occasion of the exhibition publish an 80-page artist-book in large format, with an essay by the author Trinie Dalton.

ABG Sundal Collier ASA would like to thank Håvard Homstvedt for making his work available for this edition of the Annual Report, and Galleri Riis in Oslo for their assistance and contribution.