Space Making

With: Hanne Borchgrevink, Robert Burnier, Miyoko Ito, Atta Kwami, Julia Rommel, Gerda Scheepers, Vivian Suter, Vegard Vindenes

Space Making is an exhibition addressing depth and spatiality in painting. It features the work of eight artists, who span generations and bridge contemporary positions with historical context.  

The modernist notion of painting as a medium of flatness and two-dimensionality has always also implied its ability to create a sense of space and depth. The artists presented here employ the language of painting as a vehicle for spatial construction: on canvas, in architecture, and as a conceptual tool.  

Several distinct approaches emerge in and amongst these works: an emphasis on the physical space of the exhibition or the physicality of the painted object itself; the use of painterly techniques to construct depth—both as an abstraction and as tangible, physical spatiality; and space as metaphor—investigating how the painted surface can hold psychological or metaphysical depth through form and figuration. 

Vivian Suter’s dynamic, gestural canvases are formed through layered arrangements—stacked in rows or collaged onto walls—transforming the museum into the ground of her work. Atta Kwami’s installations and paintings feature vibrant geometric patterns, which draw upon vernacular architecture and hand-painted signage that the artist observed in Ghana. Julia Rommel emphasizes painting’s physicality by re-stretching works over differently sized frames as her work is developed, and leaving elements like staples exposed. Robert Burnier’s intimate sculptures are a scaffolding for a practice rooted in painting, suggesting that painting is as much a conceptual strategy as a material exploration. 

Other artists in the exhibition depict architectural-like objects within a visual field, often serving as catalysts to imagine a world.  

Vegard Vindenes meticulously renders geometric models of his own construction or bases his paintings on photographs of existing buildings, blurring the line between the description of a physical object and its virtual representation. By focusing on the motif of the house, Hanne Borchgrevink has drawn attention to painting’s conventions and structures while inviting personal and emotional associations. For this exhibition, Borchgrevink has created an immersive room-sized visual field. In Gerda Scheepers’s paintings, figurative elements are hinted at but never fully rendered, and the tension between concealment and revelation suggests memories recalled, imbuing her work with psychological depth.  

The inclusion of Miyoko Ito’s work from the 1970s, the earliest in the exhibition, reflects a sustained artistic engagement with spatial abstraction. Known for blending Surrealism, Cubism, and lyrical color field painting, Ito’s paintings subtly incorporate figuration, suggesting fragmented memories or interior landscapes. Her late palette—soft pastels and ochres—adds a psychological, almost metaphysical charge, rooted yet transcending the tangible.

Curated by Solveig Øvstebø and Owen Martin.