Gunhild Lien: HIDDEN TRUTH
“Because we shape ourselves through images, I hope that my images can open up/unlock a discourse relating to how images help shape our consciousness.”
2022 Artist-in-Residence at Montana Natural History Center
How was your experience as an Open AIR Artist-in-Residence?
Professionally (artistically) the Open-Air residency was a rewarding and valuable experience. It gave me the chance to expanding my professional network and opened up opportunities for me to meet and communicate with other professionals from the field of art and other professions including naturalists, biologists and environmentalists. I also enjoyed working with the research collection housed at the Natural history Centre and The University of Montana.
From an outsider’s point of view, living for one month on the critical border between the known and the unknown sharpens aesthetic resonances and cultivates an appetite for the new and unknown.
What was your research process during this time?
The research process I applied during my residency began with using my grandfather’s America photographs to explore in more depth his experiences as an immigrant to Montana. Through a separate visual response to this, so-called "post-memory" material, I developed a series of artworks under the collective title “Hidden truth”. By exploring forms of memories in representations inspirited by historical pasts from the early 1900, I asked the question: “What was missing in these images of a white man”. To try and find ways of visualizing this I experimented with sculpting a 3D model in Blender of my grandfather. I also employed montage, developed weaving techniques, and used a form of photography in the extended field.
What are you up to now (post Open AIR)?
In relationship to the project “Hidden truth”, I am currently developing artworks for the Open-Air exhibition at Gallery 709 in Missoula, April 2023. I have also been invited to make/create concept art environments for an animation short film production. More recently I have just delivered together with the artist Stuart Ian Frost a project proposal for the creation of a sculpture installation for a new school building in Lørenskog near Oslo. Norway I am also developing new artworks for a project in Japan which is due to take place in 2024.
How would you describe your work?
If I were to describe my work, I would say that it address’s themes/issues connected to various aspects of social and environment concern. I use a wide variety of media including drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, and installation. I ‘am mindful when it comes to the choice of which medium/technique I should use. Making sure to pick the one that I feel best captures the concept I wish to depict. The images I create are often based around a collection of subjective infrastructures containing fragments from the environment, photographs, old family pictures and found objects. The execution of these works/projects is often a direct result of meetings or an aggregation of different types of visual memories or pieces of consciousness. The intention behind this form for expression has been to compile and allow a meeting between different types of raw material, culminating in the creation of new meaning.
Have your material choices changed over the years?
The choice of the materials I employ has changed over the years, but the interest in the image has always been the focus. In the broadest sense of the word, I think Image with reference to the scholar/theorist W.J.T Mitchell, where he promotes what an image is. i.e., most of everything the visual world around us including the images on the unconscious level.
Because we shape ourselves through images, I hope that my images can open up/unlock a discourse relating to how images help shape our consciousness. What we see is what we become. It is through images that we know the world. In short, everything is images.
When did you first begin working with this medium, media?
I first began working on graphic expression through the techniques of photography and graphics and later through painting whilst studying at Art school. This education provided a broad foundation upon which to build.
I work most often heterogeneous in addition to the “extended field of photography”, painting and sculpture. I'm not too keen on being categorized. The choice of material varies widely. From the use of traditional materials, all the way through to the use of natural raw materials and the involvement in Land- Art and collaborative projects. During the past ten years I have been influenced by the digital revolution and now work a lot with the programs Procreate and Blender. Since the onslaught of the digital technology, the distance between the varying disciplines have become blurred. Nowadays all artworks, additionally end up as digital files, regardless of their origin as a drawing, painting or 3D sculpture.
To learn more about Gunhild, follow her @liengunhild or visit her website www.gunhildlien.com
