Gallery Unlock is pleased to present “Before the Eyes Focus”, a virtual solo exhibition by Norwegian artist Gro Folkan and curated by Stefania Carrozzini. In “Before the Eyes Focus”, the artist investigates the space that lies beyond the vision, where the images not yet formed already possess a body, a physical pregnancy, an uncontaminated nature. A gaze that allows access to the auroral dimension, which lies in the middle, between reality and listening to a world not yet revealed and which corresponds to the intermediate time of focusing. These are works with a predominantly abstract language in which the female universe is seen as the archetype of life. Her images are inspired by runes, the sign alphabet used for thousands of years by the peoples of the North to invoke hidden aspects of reality.
In addition to the runes, the artist focuses on the female myths of ancient civilizations, including Inanna, goddess of fertility and abundance and Freya, goddess of love and seduction. Gro Folkan expresses itself through a free pictorial gesture, where the fluidity of forms creates unexpected spaces, in a play of light and shadow entirely inside the painting. Her work rigorously investigates the relationship between life and art, between everyday life and creativity, between the sacred and the profane.
Nature is always the great witness, the point of reference from which to leave and return. The exhibition as a whole highlights that feminine attitude of profound introspection, but also of openness to the world, where painting is a gift, a vital fluid, an instrument that brings to light the seeds that germinate in the unconscious with which to narrate. endless stories, where the fire of inspiration sings the hymns of creation. All the artist’s work moves in the awareness that the real, last images will then be those that will be born in the viewer’s mind.
Gro Folkan has worked for many years to develop a technique suitable for her purpose. She uses metals a lot: gold, silver, brass, copper, aluminum, tin, smoked silver, palladium, platinum. If suitable she treats them chemically for the deeper layers of the artwork to come through and crate new colors. She also uses interference colors that change depending on the angle of view. “My pictures – Gro Folkan says – are instruments, like runes, used for thousands of years by Northern peoples to invoke hidden aspects of reality. The real pictures, the images are not the lines and colors on my canvases, but the images coming into being in the mind of the onlooker’.
Gro Folkan was born in Oslo, Norway and she lives between Oslo and Tromsoe. She studied Art at the National Art Academy in Oslo. She has had 32 solo exhibitions of her paintings in leading galleries in Norway and abroad and has also taken part in numerous joint exhibitions. Her works have been purchased by the Norwegian National Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, the National Bank of Norway, Art collections , national universities, institutions, and national Offices.
