Exhibition: Chaos and Reverence - 4 contemporary artists, Oslo; Norway
Featured image : Torild Stray Selfportrait 2021 oil on linen
Chaos and Reverence - 4 contemporary artists
Kaos og Ærefrykt - 4 samtidskunstnere
Maja Dannegaard
Bertil Greging
Cicilie Risaasen
Torild Stray
Working across acrylic, oil, charcoal, coffee, ink, and clay, these four contemporary painters approach painting not simply as a medium, but as a charged field of tension, negotiation, and continual transformation. Their practices unfold within a dynamic and elastic spectrum—stretching from the raw, intuitive, and chaotic to the restrained, formal, and minimalist—where each gesture is both deliberate and uncertain, carrying within it a balance of intention, resistance, and risk. Material is not passive here; it asserts itself, interrupts control, and redirects process, allowing unpredictability to become an integral part of meaning-making.
What unites these divergent approaches is a shared sensitivity to presence: a sustained attentiveness to the act of making, to duration, and to the surface as a site of encounter rather than resolution. In these works, surfaces hold traces of time, revision, and hesitation—layers that suggest both construction and erosion. There is a quiet insistence on the dialogue between control and surrender, where neither dominates, and where meaning emerges through their friction. Each artist navigates this terrain differently—some leaning into density and accumulation, others toward reduction and spatial clarity—but all remain invested in expanding what painting can hold: emotionally, materially, and conceptually, as both object and experience.
Together, their works invite the viewer into a space where chaos and reverence are not opposing conditions, but interdependent forces—coexisting, colliding, and continuously reshaping one another. In this space, instability becomes generative, and stillness becomes charged; the viewer is drawn into a heightened awareness of looking, where ambiguity is sustained rather than resolved, and where painting remains open—resisting closure while insisting on its own presence.
14.05.22 - 12.06.22
Opening Saturday May 14th 2-6 PM
The Artists will be present at the opening.
Galleri Balder
Riddervoldsgate 9
Oslo, Norway
