Gitte Magnus

On The Move

24 September - 8 November 2020

Gitte Magnus works with textiles in an abstract language with references to modernism and different materials/textiles utilising colour processing and chemicals. Building up, breaking down, glueing together, printing layer on layer, stripping and then treating the result with different chemicals. Through this experimentation she has developed her own textile surfaces and forms.

Magnus began in 2011 to digitalise her earlier experiments with textiles and ideas as a further development in the infinite investigation of the possibilities to express oneself through textile materials and technics. She scans small pieces of material she has experimented with, alters the digital image using photoshop, scales up and prints out on a large textile printer. She then reworks the surface with a variety of media; charcoal, acrylic, varnish etc.

The themes that Magnus uses often have a starting point in her own experience. In the spring of 2016 she was forced to move from her studio in Youngsgaten in Oslo where she had worked in a supportive environment for 33 years. This was the start of a project with the title «On the Move/ Flyttefot». The everyday environment at her studio is tightly linked to Gitte’s identity as an artist and it took her 2 years to adjust fully to her new work routine and environment. In the work “Flyttefot 1» Gitte elevates the theme of moving from her own concrete experience to a more general theme of the necessity of belonging somewhere and the need for some core stability in ones life.

Gitte Magnus (b.1949) lives in Høvik and has a studio in Asker. She has a Diploma in Textile Art from the National Acadamy in Arts and Craft in Oslo including one year as a visiting student at the Academy of Art in Vienna (1970-71). Magnus has held a number of solo exhibitions, amongst these at TRAFO KUNSTHALL, KRAFT Bergen, KUNSTNERFORBUNDET and at HÅ GAMLE PRESTEGÅRD. She has been a contributor to several group exhibitions including «Norwegian Tekxtile Artists» 40 year anniversary exhibition; "Ode to a Washing Cloth, Hymn to a Tiger" (Kunstnerforbundet 2017 and the Art Exhibition Centre in Stavanger 2018) and "Soft Monuments" at Kode in Bergen (2015). She was Professor and Department Head at the Art College in Bergen 1998 - 2005, has been committee member awarding scholarships, and has worked as a curator , exhibition leader and artist advisor. Several important institutions have purchased her works including the Nordenfjeldske kunstindustri Museum in Trondheim, Kode in Bergen, the National Museum in Oslo and Norwegian Art Council.