Stavanger-born artist Ingeborg Tysse's work is highlighted at this year's Ceramics Brussels. In an interview with CAS, Tysse describes her inspirations, her approach to working in different media, and drops a few hints about upcoming projects.
Your practice takes on a variety of forms including sculpture, installation, weavings, video and text. How do you identify yourself as an artist? Do you place yourself within any specific creative lineage? Where do you find influences for your work?
I have always worked across disciplines and across fields such as fashion and theatre. It allows my process to constantly change tempo, rhythm and energy, which is important to me. As a person, I am quite impatient and I get easily bored when working with one material or medium for too long, so it’s liberating to change mindset, logic and environments. In the past, I’ve become frustrated thinking that I have to limit myself to one art form and get good at that. It’s a lot more fun building worlds and being able to work within those. I also meet a lot of interesting people from different professions, like engineers in metal scrap yards, car mechanics, weavers, lumberjacks, or the people I meet while buying weird stuff on finn.no. In this world building, I also find inspiration from other disciplines, especially fields where imagination is key, like literature and theatre. I find a lot of inspiration in nature as well; in the trollish dark forests as well as how they have adapted or been tamed into urban environments.
You were born in Stavanger, and have studied at the Art Academy in Iceland, National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, and you most recently completed your MFA at the Art Academy in Bergen. Has working in different locations and communities affected your work?
Wherever I am, I scavenge a lot of materials connected to local environments, and so in that way, location is really important. I treat the found materials as carriers of time and history, and I seek out places of importance to my projects. In Bergen I am in contact with lumberjacks and companies who take care of the woods surrounding the city. They call me if they fell a tree and there are leftover wooden pieces that I can come and pick up. Again, nature is a big inspiration to me, and I think I am naturally drawn to places where the wild and tamed nature are closely intertwined. Iceland is amazing in that way. My starting point into the world was actually moving from Stavanger to Paris when I was quite young, which was an important but dramatic move. I love a pulse and I find a lot of inspiration in bigger cities, yet I think my work can benefit from staying in smaller cities and more isolated environments. It’s not an opposition; it’s more about where I am in life and how I want my work to develop. Living in Oslo and Bergen is familiar and they are easy cities to navigate in. The art community in Bergen is open, exploratory and feels big and international in relation to its geographical size. Artists work together and across fields which makes it a great place to stay as a newly established artist.
Your work has been viewed in relation to scenography and myth (your sculptures in particular seem anthropomorphic). Can you discuss the element of storytelling in your work?
I treat all elements I work with – sculpture, video, text, costumes, drawings, weavings and sound – as equal components in a bigger body of work, telling stories or making myths. Depending on the space it’s shown in or created for, it can be regarded as scenography or installation, or everything in between. I’m fascinated by mythmaking as a method for storytelling. I am just as interested in ancient myths and cosmologies as I am in contemporary myths and their political influence on society. I often write and draw a lot as a starting point in my projects, and end up with endless sketch books and visual maps. These maps can sometimes act as messy screenplays in my projects, landscapes where sculptures as actors, weaving as scenography, video and sound, all components in telling a story. When working with costumes and with Stavanger based theatre company Mågå, it’s exciting to be able to focus on one component in a bigger setting. My practice has always been close to the theatrical and performative, and it is inspiring to work together with talented people in a bigger production with storytelling in movement.
Your work often combines organic and synthetic materials, traditional craft methods and digital technology, and serious environmental concerns with absurd humor. How do you think about creating a balance between these seemingly opposing elements?
It’s about working with what’s in-between instead of the opposites. I find the spectrum to be a more interesting space to work within, being a place where doors, glitches and magic can co-exist. The world today shows us that the dichotomies and opposites really aren't the place to stay, and what's in-between can open a lot more generative conversations. In my practice, working parallel with for example traditional wood carving and digital elements, is also a way of working with time. I inherited my grandfather's wood carving instruments and some of my grandmother's weaving frames, and to be able to continue their work is to me in many ways keeping them alive in my everyday life. When combining this history with synthetic epoxy or glitchy digital screens, I create hybrid meetings and speak about time and combined histories. I am interested in what we perceive as organic and synthetic, in materials, as in nature and our experience of our body and memories.
Your work is highlighted this year at Ceramics Brussels. Can you tell us about the work on view?
I am showing a mix of old and new works. Among others, my giant sculpture “big move” has made its way here. It’s really exciting watching her in a new and international setting. I am presenting five sculptures in wood, weaving, metal and with tiny pieces of sprayed air drying clay. The clay looks a bit like shiny metal, and is a continuation of mimicking materials and working in between the synthetic and organic. Ceramics in its traditional form is not my medium, although I have experimented a lot with clay in the past. In the setting of a ceramic art fair, I am a bit rebellious, which I kind of enjoy. So far, the reception has been great, and it’s exciting to be here with Kiosken.
Do you have any ongoing research or upcoming projects that you can tell us about?
I have some exciting projects and exhibitions coming up this spring that I've been working with for the past months. I am opening a solo exhibition in Oslo in a few months, which I don't think I can tell about until next week actually, haha. I will share it when I can! It’s a venue I’ve always admired and it is super exciting to be invited. After that I have a couple of group shows in really interesting and closed down locations in Oslo and Stryn. It has been a busy period and intense year since finishing my Master's, which I am so grateful for. These days I am all about birds: researching, recording and watching. My father is an ornithologist and so birdwatching comes naturally to me. It’s like I get closer to my roots by looking up, and there is a lot of freedom in looking up to their sphere, where human-made boundaries and logics don’t exist.
CAS har tatt en fot i bakken med Nils-Thomas Økland, påtroppende kurator ved Hå gamle prestegard: En samtale om overgangen fra livet som kunstner til fast ansatt, hans kuratorbakgrunn, og mulighetsrommene på en av regionens mest betydningsfulle kunstinstitusjoner.
How can painting, textiles, and traditional cultural patterns help create a sense of belonging in a foreign landscape? In the below conversation, Sandes-based artist Yvette Lardinois discuss her relationship with textiles, how her work evolved after moving to Norway from the Netherlands, and how traditional motifs can teach and evolve through artistic practice.
Over the last several years, we at CAS have spoken with colleagues, artists, and friends, both casually and formally about studio visits. The issue of expectations and ethics came up repeatedly: nearly everyone has expectations about studio visits, but they're often different and very rarely communicated clearly. Although many good things can come out of studio visits, these mixed and unmet expectations can lead to feelings of resentment and frustration. In an attempt to counter this, CAS and Open Studios Stavanger & Sandnes co-hosted a public discussion about studio visit ethics. The goal was not a definitive answer, but rather an opening conversation to share our experiences, perspectives, and to raise awareness of tools that exist to help artists and curators communicate their needs and boundaries. We were honored to be joined in this conversation by Stavanger-based artist Anna Ihle* and Martina Petrelli, curator of Atelier Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo. Below is an edited transcript of our discussion.