Rina Charlott Lindgren: «Shapeshifter»

The starting point for Rina Charlott Lindgren’s artistic practice is drawing, yet she has built out from there and explores a diverse set of materials. She mainly creates works on paper and sculptures in wood, but her art can also be made of, or include, materials such as leather and stone. She concentrates on landscapes and space. With references to – but also divergence from – the Romantic landscape tradition, the works relate just as much to the surrounding space as to their material base.

Some of Lindgren’s key themes are introspection, time and space, and the relationship between humans and nature. A work can for instance be about the friction that arises when something man-made encounters nature, or a situation in which nature reclaims something man-made. The themes can manifest themselves in figurative expressions in certain works, and more abstract expressions in others. The works are marked by the encounter between irregular, natural forms and geometrical forms and surfaces. One example is Inn i naturen (Into Nature), a stone sculpture in the park Langåsen skulpturpark in Svolvær. The sculpture can be seen as a satellite to the exhibition at the North Norwegian Art Centre.

In the gallery, Lindgren presents a series of drawings on paper, several sculptures in wood and some works in materials such as leather and stone. The exhibition shows the breadth of her artistic practice over time and in terms of materials and expressions. In addition to presenting her own works, she has invited a handful of others to contribute one work each – artists who, in different ways, have been significant for her artistic practice. In the middle of the exhibition space, a reflection of the room forms a room within the room. Here at the heart of the exhibition, she showcases the five guest artists: Bjørn Bjarre, Thomas Falstad, Mattias Härenstam, Ingri Haraldsen and Øystein Lønvik.

Rina Charlott Lindgren (b. 1983 in Tromsø) lives in the village of Ramberg in Lofoten. She studied at the Art Academy of Trondheim and Listaháskóli Íslands in Reykjavik. Her works have been featured in exhibitions at (a selection) Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum (Tromsø), Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall (Arendal), Høstutstillingen and Galleri Haaken (Oslo), Buskerud Kunstsenter (Dramen), Oppland Kunstsenter (Lillehammer), Bærum Kunsthall (Fornebu), Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum (Trondheim), Nordic Contemporary (Paris) and Teckningsmuseet (Laholm, Sweden). Her works have been purchased by, among others, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Oslo Municipality, Equinor, Sparebanken Nord-Norge, Nordland County and Troms County.