APRIL 2025
Torill Brosten – visual artist (Norway)
Torill Brosten graduated as a textile artist from the Norwegian National Academy of Arts, Crafts and Design (SHKD) in Bergen, 1989. After graduating, she has participated in a number of exhibitions at home and abroad, and worked on several public commissions. Brosten has a studio in Sandnes, in Stasjon K.
The artworks Torill creates lie on the border between painting and experimental print, shaped through an impulsive and spontaneous working process that suits the artist’s temperament. Through the application of thin layers of paint in layers, a translucent, transparent surface is achieved that expresses a distinctive texture – a materiality that gives associations to precisely; water, cold, ice, heat or temperature changes.
Sonja Hillen – visual artist (the Netherlands)
The common thread in my work is formed by the major events in my life and also in the lives of others, such as motherhood, illness and grief. How is that reflected?
This thread is intertwined with the longing for the place where I want to be. A life long search starting from a feeling of nostalgia and an indefinable melancholy for something or somewhere I don’t even have a memory of.
My artworks are drawings with embroidery on canvas or paper. In my spatial artworks I use textiles, embroidery and other materials. Working with textiles and embroidery has been instilled in me from an early age. Still, it was not an obvious choice to use this material. I’ve slowly grown towards it. In the end, this became the material I prefer to work with the most.
Kenneth Varpe – painting (Norway)
https://kenneth-varpe.squarespace.com/
Kenneth Varpe´s practice involves video, drawing, object and installation, but has recently centered around aspects of painting. He attempts to address formal and mimetic concerns while exploring the relationship between material and motif, between the depiction and the depicted, and sees his work as negotiating between the intuitive and the reasoned – a position of informed naiveté. Varpe (b. 1978) got his MFA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art & Design, London.
Iris Lam – Interdisciplinary artist (the Netherlands)
www.irislam.nl
Iris Lam is an interdisciplinary artist. She writes, makes illustrations and animations. Her drawings and animations are always recognizable by that one typical face :).
Her main goal is to make sensitive subjects such as female sexuality, sex work, hygiene (or the lack thereof), climate justice, fear and death discussable.
Her most recent book is called ‘De Bond Voor Bangeriken’ a book about fear for children aged ten and older. Made in collaboration with publisher Volt Kind.
Recently she is working on her new book. A project that she started at KHMessen in 2024 and where she will continue working on during this residence period.
Iris is here with her partner Pieke Werner .
Pieke Werner – visual artists and writer (the Netherlands)
https://buitenkunst.nl/medewerker/pieke-werner/
Pieke studied Image and Language at the Rietveld Academy and writes songs, short stories and art reviews for Johan Deumens Gallery, among others. She also gives children’s workshops at Buitenkunst and works at an outdoor play organization in the Netherlands.
Vardi Bobrow – Visual Artist (Israel)
https://www.vardibobrow.com/
The elusive creative process, at least the part I can describe, nearly always begins for me following a reading of canonical texts from literature and philosophy, scientific research articles, or images from science, especially the aesthetics revealed through the microscope. These are what generate my artworks, as each beginning of a new work is the outcome of a continuous quest.
Over the past few years, I have been working with readymades and found materials, whose common denominator is simplicity, ordinariness, functionality, and lack of aura: synthetic and metallic materials, such as industrial bristle fibers and wires, or rubber bands used in offices. These are the basic elements of my artworks.
The fact that they are not unique enables me to create dialectics between their practical use, so familiar and well-known, and between their use as the main components of an artwork. For example, rubber bands resonate the practical nature of an organization, with its orderliness and clerical banality, while I charge them with the added symbolism of their embodied elasticity, round shape, and being a link in a chain. This reveals its ambivalence: if we examine the limits of its elasticity, it will break, lose its ability to function, and will strike back at us in a whipping motion.
MARCH 2025
Nanna Gunhild Amstrup – Visual Artist (Denmark/Norway)
https://nannagunhild.com/
Nanna Gunhild Amstrup (b.1995, Denmark) works with drawing, textile, costumes and sculpture. She is taking her master degree from Oslo National Academy of the Arts, department of medium- and material-based art.
In her practice, Nanna Gunhild works with World Building done through either drawing or scenographic installations. Her work is inspired by the power of the narrator. Focusing on mythologies, she investigates how different narrators have rewritten mythologies and how the power to define a narrative lies with whoever is given the opportunity to reproduce it.
She has previously exhibited in Denmark, Norway, England, Poland and Iceland.
Vardi Bobrow – Visual Artist (Israel)
https://www.vardibobrow.com/
The elusive creative process, at least the part I can describe, nearly always begins for me following a reading of canonical texts from literature and philosophy, scientific research articles, or images from science, especially the aesthetics revealed through the microscope. These are what generate my artworks, as each beginning of a new work is the outcome of a continuous quest.
Over the past few years, I have been working with readymades and found materials, whose common denominator is simplicity, ordinariness, functionality, and lack of aura: synthetic and metallic materials, such as industrial bristle fibers and wires, or rubber bands used in offices. These are the basic elements of my artworks.
The fact that they are not unique enables me to create dialectics between their practical use, so familiar and well-known, and between their use as the main components of an artwork. For example, rubber bands resonate the practical nature of an organization, with its orderliness and clerical banality, while I charge them with the added symbolism of their embodied elasticity, round shape, and being a link in a chain. This reveals its ambivalence: if we examine the limits of its elasticity, it will break, lose its ability to function, and will strike back at us in a whipping motion.
Jurel is an artist working at the intersection of ecology, art, and technology. She transforms the natural into a digital framework to explore ecological issues within an artistic field. For her, creating art in a time of planetary crisis begins with careful observation of the world around her, driven by a deep curiosity and love for a more-than-human world.
By working with bio-indicators such as lichens and plants, Jurel reveals invisible forms of environmental pollution. Through installations, video art, and data visualization, she uncovers the complex relationships between agricultural and capitalistic practices and their impact on the environment, while reflecting on the role of technology in these processes.
Her video installations evoke curiosity and reflection, encouraging viewers to engage with the more-than-human world critically. Her thoughtful and theoretical approach offers a framework for analyzing and visualizing the complex dynamics of pollution’s influence on ecological systems.
Margaux Dinam – France – Printmaking
https://margauxdinam.com/
Margaux lives and works in Paris.
Her work revolves around the representation of nature, with a strong influence from the scientific images she collects, the fiction she reads, and the weeds that fascinate her.
She creates illustrations for magazines and a variety of clients, as well as developing a personal practice as an author. Her comics are tinged with science fiction and ecofeminism, and reflect on our relationship with the living.
Åsne Eldøy – Visual Artist (Norway)
https://www.aeldoy.com/
Visual artist Åsne Eldøy (b. 1987, NO) works within the medium of photography, publications and installation. Åsne expresses herself through photography, publications and installations, and is constantly experimenting with the photographic medium. She works with transfers of photography, both in two- and three-dimensional installations.
Åsne is interested in marginal zones, questions of value and the distinction between nature and man-made landscapes. Her interest is captured by phenomena or history associated with a location or landscape. By looking at the relationship between nature and culture, post-industrial non-places and “untouched nature”, her projects express an attitude towards the environment and the climate challenge we face, both as a society and as individuals.
Åsne is also funder and co/owner of Topos Bokforlag.
Since 2017 Topos Bokforlag has served as a platform for investigating artistic practices through the book format.
FEBRUARY 2025
Margaux Dinam – France – Printmaking
https://margauxdinam.com/
Margaux lives and works in Paris.
Her work revolves around the representation of nature, with a strong influence from the scientific images she collects, the fiction she reads, and the weeds that fascinate her.
She creates illustrations for magazines and a variety of clients, as well as developing a personal practice as an author. Her comics are tinged with science fiction and ecofeminism, and reflect on our relationship with the living.
Eriko Fujita – Japan – Printmaking
https://www.erikofujita.com/
Visual artist based in Hiroshima, Japan. My artistic practice is based on printmaking and photography. I explore themes of uncertainty, fragility, and afterimage of memory and vision while documenting landscapes, nature, and the environment around me that disappear in an instant due to man-made disasters. During the pandemic, I started creating prints called “River series” on the theme of a river flowing through Hiroshima City, expressing the ephemeral nature of the river’s time and landscape. I continue to visit rivers in Japan and abroad, researching the cultural background of the region, and selects symbolic shapes and colors based on sketches, capturing them as fragments of memory. The works do not converge on a single form, but rather document an ever-changing existence as memories from multiple perspectives.
Sarah Damai Hoogman – Visual Artist (the Netherlands)
https://sarahhoogman.com/
Sarah is an interdisciplinary artist who translates the observations of her human perception into new media art. Fascinated by ecological changes, she tries to understand natures systems by reducing the enormity of the universe and natural phenomena to the human scale. In this way she explores what is beyond our realities while researching the interfaces between technology, science, nature and art. Hoogman works at the intersection of ecological research and sound art, resulting in experience based installations. Her work invites viewers to connect with the unseen forces of nature and reconsider their place within a vast and interconnected world.
Åsne Eldøy – Visual Artist (Norway)
https://www.aeldoy.com/
Visual artist Åsne Eldøy (b. 1987, NO) works within the medium of photography, publications and installation. Åsne expresses herself through photography, publications and installations, and is constantly experimenting with the photographic medium. She works with transfers of photography, both in two- and three-dimensional installations.
Åsne is interested in marginal zones, questions of value and the distinction between nature and man-made landscapes. Her interest is captured by phenomena or history associated with a location or landscape. By looking at the relationship between nature and culture, post-industrial non-places and “untouched nature”, her projects express an attitude towards the environment and the climate challenge we face, both as a society and as individuals.
Åsne is also funder and co/owner of Topos Bokforlag.
Since 2017 Topos Bokforlag has served as a platform for investigating artistic practices through the book format.
Jurel is an artist working at the intersection of ecology, art, and technology. She transforms the natural into a digital framework to explore ecological issues within an artistic field. For her, creating art in a time of planetary crisis begins with careful observation of the world around her, driven by a deep curiosity and love for a more-than-human world.
By working with bio-indicators such as lichens and plants, Jurel reveals invisible forms of environmental pollution. Through installations, video art, and data visualization, she uncovers the complex relationships between agricultural and capitalistic practices and their impact on the environment, while reflecting on the role of technology in these processes.
Her video installations evoke curiosity and reflection, encouraging viewers to engage with the more-than-human world critically. Her thoughtful and theoretical approach offers a framework for analyzing and visualizing the complex dynamics of pollution’s influence on ecological systems.
JANUARY 2025
Åsne Eldøy – Visual Artist (Norway)
https://www.aeldoy.com/
Visual artist Åsne Eldøy (b. 1987, NO) works within the medium of photography, publications and installation. Åsne expresses herself through photography, publications and installations, and is constantly experimenting with the photographic medium. She works with transfers of photography, both in two- and three-dimensional installations.
Åsne is interested in marginal zones, questions of value and the distinction between nature and man-made landscapes. Her interest is captured by phenomena or history associated with a location or landscape. By looking at the relationship between nature and culture, post-industrial non-places and “untouched nature”, her projects express an attitude towards the environment and the climate challenge we face, both as a society and as individuals.
Åsne is also funder and co/owner of Topos Bokforlag.
Since 2017 Topos Bokforlag has served as a platform for investigating artistic practices through the book format.
Lars Johnsson – Visual Artist (Sweden)
https://larsoskarjonsson.wordpress.com
Lars is a Swedish artist based in Bergen/Umeå. He is educated at the Art Academy in Umeå, Escola Massana in Barcelona and holds an MFA from the Art Academy in Bergen. He is interested in structures related to identity, relationships and memories. Based on an investigation of various phenomena, his practice is materialized through performance, installation, video, text and objects. And in that process, humor often emerges as a tool for consideration and sensitivity.
Recent exhibitions include Pragiedrek, Panevėžys; OTTE, Copenhagen; Gallery PADA, Lisboa; Brande Biennalen, Brande; Iovermorgen, Copenhagen and Bergen Kunsthall, among others.
Sarah Damai Hoogman – Visual Artist (the Netherlands)
https://sarahhoogman.com/
Sarah is an interdisciplinary artist who translates the observations of her human perception into new media art. Fascinated by ecological changes, she tries to understand natures systems by reducing the enormity of the universe and natural phenomena to the human scale. In this way she explores what is beyond our realities while researching the interfaces between technology, science, nature and art. Hoogman works at the intersection of ecological research and sound art, resulting in experience based installations. Her work invites viewers to connect with the unseen forces of nature and reconsider their place within a vast and interconnected world.
Jurel is an artist working at the intersection of ecology, art, and technology. She transforms the natural into a digital framework to explore ecological issues within an artistic field. For her, creating art in a time of planetary crisis begins with careful observation of the world around her, driven by a deep curiosity and love for a more-than-human world.
By working with bio-indicators such as lichens and plants, Jurel reveals invisible forms of environmental pollution. Through installations, video art, and data visualization, she uncovers the complex relationships between agricultural and capitalistic practices and their impact on the environment, while reflecting on the role of technology in these processes.
Her video installations evoke curiosity and reflection, encouraging viewers to engage with the more-than-human world critically. Her thoughtful and theoretical approach offers a framework for analyzing and visualizing the complex dynamics of pollution’s influence on ecological systems.
