Carl Martin Hansen

08.02-04.05

Carl Martin Hansen shows a series of drawings from Kvinnherad.

Carl Martin Hansen shows a series of drawings from Kvinnherad. The drawings are influenced by the landscape but do not depict it in the traditional sense. He lets mood, impressions and musical impulses guide his work. Carl Martin plays in harmony with nature, rather than reproducing it. This impulse-driven method stems from landscape painting as it developed in the late 19th century, for example with the work of Claude Monet.
Carl Martin Hansen himself describes the work as follows:

The series Diary from Kvinnherad stems from two periods in Kvinnherad in the summers of 2023 and 2024. At the time, I worked as an assistant at Valen Hospital and in my free time I went a lot to the mountains in the area. I wanted to stay in Kvinnherad especially because of the proximity to the powerful and spectacular mountainous nature.

All the drawings in the series were made during these stays at Valen. I consciously wanted to let impressions from the surroundings be an important element in the pictures, but at the same time more as a meeting between the outside and the inside. For me, the drawings are first and foremost expressions of moods and musical impulses, but with landscape impressions as an important element.

Hints of face and figure are present in many of the works. I have for a long time been fascinated by physical figures and the face as a form, but also by other figurative hints. Fragments of text also appear in some of the pictures.
The title characterizes the geographical area where I worked with the drawings, and the drawings functioned for me as a form of diary. I wanted the title to be open and allow for more thoughts without pointing unambiguously to landscape, even though hints of landscape are present in many of the works. Carl Martin Hansen, January 2025.

Carl Martin Hansen graduated from Vestlandets Kunstakademi in Bergen in 1994. He was born in Odense, Denmark, but has lived and worked in Bergen since 1990. He works with both 2- and 3-dimensional expressions through painting, drawing, sculpture and spatial installations, has exhibited in a number of places nationally and internationally and is represented in the collections of, among others, Bergen Kunstmuseum, Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Drammen Museum and Teckningmuseet in Laholm. In 2010 he participated in the exhibition BGO1 at Bergen Kunstmuseum and in 2012 at the Autumn Exhibition in Oslo. Solo exhibitions include Galleri BOA, Oslo (2016), Kunsthuset Kabuso, Øystese (2013), Tag Team Studio, Bergen (2012), Teckningsmuseet, Laholm, Sweden (2008), Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Trier, Germany (2008) and Krefelder Kunstverein, Germany (2004).

Photos: Thor Brødreskift