hold hold grasp grasp stay stay
22.06.24-26.01.25
Ann Iren Buan
Ann Iren Buan (NO, 1984) work in the cross-field between drawing and sculpting and explores the perspectives on precariousness. She creates monumental pieces in paper and pigment, which is left in stages of decay and express emotions of fear, discomfort and vulnerability. As medial hybrids, the pieces challenge the boundaries between sculpting and drawing, bodies and architecture, strength and vulnerability.
Buan is preoccupied with the contrast between the fragile and monumental and work with wear and tear and instability. According to Buan monuments and a lot of architecture have, historically speaking, been meant to inspire awe in the onlooker. But in her pieces body and architecture meld together. Buans pieces consist mainly of paper, pastel chalk and plaster. Through rough processing she create wounds, tears and wear and tear - she hammers, grinds and rip her pieces apart, only to then patch them back together. Left are broken pieces with the character of skin and ruins, insistant on survival.
During her studies Buan worked tenaciously to achieve a innate understanding of the paper’s and drawing tools’ possible utilities. After having worked in the figurative for a number of years, she started moving towards abstraction and an examination of the drawing medium’s materiality. This leads to monumental pieces, which challenge the distinction between sculpture and picture, bodies and architecture - and which will now be shown in the exhibit hold hold grasp grasp stay stay.
Buan is educated at the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo, Royal Swedish Academi of Fine Arts, China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Buan has a long line of exhibits behind her, for example she has, among others, displayed at OSL Conmteporary (N), CHART Art Fair (DK) and A Palazzo Gallery (I). In 2022 the Nationalmuseum (NO) acquired Buan’s piece, Tether (2016)
The exhibit is supported by:
The Ministry of Culture, the A.P. Moller Foundation, New Carlsberg Foundation, Hoffmann og Husmans Foundation, Beckett Foundation, Office for Contemporary Art Norway.