15.05.2008 - 22.06.2008
"Galleri Riis will on May 15th open an exhibition with selected works by the artist Terje Nicolaisen. Nicolaisen (b. 1964), educated at the art colleges of Trondheim 1993-96 and Bergen 1996-97, lives and works in Oslo. His artistic endeavor springs out of the medium of drawing, which he redefines and relates to in a wide extent. They span from small unpretentious ink drawings to large, complex paintings on paper with elements of collage, as well as thematically organized unique artist’s books. In this exhibition, in the gallery’s project space/show room, works from the entire register will come together.
Terje Nicolaisen’s works span in both expression and motifs from immediate “one-liners” to open and sensitive poetic communications, quotes from - and references - to art and other artists, portraits of famous cultural personalities, and quotations from mass media. Elements of the burlesque and tragicomic, tinged with utopian, anarchistic and surreal elements, are characteristic of the works, which are simple in means but virtuosely executed in mixed media on paper. In this exhibition Nicolaisen will, for the first time, present his library of unique artist’s books of approximately 250 volumes. On the occasion of this exhibition, Nicolaisen has also produced a limited-edition CD with music that is both composed and performed by the artist, with unique cover illustrations." Galleri Riis
I was invited to do a show at Gallery Riis Projectspace this spring. The focus was Works on paper. Obviously I had a great deal of Artist Books Unicas that we wanted to show. During the winter I added a considerable ammount of work to this home-made library. It was in a way the first real presentation of the books. There is a title list in my publication section.
I had also recorded and written songs on my stay in Berlin only 15 months earlier. I did'nt really know what to do with this material, but I finally concluded that it also had to enter the numerous catalogue of artist books. So I released the CD-rom, edition of 100, signed and numbered, on this show. Alive In Berlin - Europals
A third part was previous works. A selection of large scale drawings with watercolour and another selection of small scale ones. In my drawers there must be several hundred of these less large drawings, and the process of selection seems to me to be very difficult. As if I were walking through the forest just before total darkness, but still with a shadowy obscure sense of sight and a good confident sense of direction. After this hike, fellow artists have helped me, and finally the gallery people did a selection of the selection.
Galleri Riis
