| Pernille S. R. Olsen
| Pernille Sunniva Rutledal Olsen @ Petrolsen.art
Artist statement | I am a collection of my memories, and my art is a collection of me.
As both a full-time seafarer and artist, the daily aim is to utilise any location and time available for creativity. Having the agility to optimise everyday gaps and experiences is essential to the artistic process. In this way, life on various vessels stimulates the construction of stories. The audio and visual sketches produced return home with me to be the focus of further practice-based ,investigations.
The studio in Bergen, Norway is where I reflect upon on the ideas gathered. Past and present meet through their material transformations. Revisiting and reworking personal and often problematic experiences shape the work. For example, sounds from the ship echo with those of childhood memories: the capacity for which is under enquiry.
The social disconnect of physical displacement allows for a specific kind of psychological distance. For me, the interior of a machine can be likened to the complex workings of mind, body and familial relations – a form of ‘us’, and our shared knowledge in the human condition. A conscious and purposeful filtering occurs, as the painful, stressful, demanding or pleasurable gives way to a mundane routine that allows headspace.
Drawing out the unseen experiential connections between differing spaces and temporalities is an attempt to connect back into the world following isolation. The sense of obligation that form our social ties become central to the work. Whether sound, paintings, drawings, text, prints, sculpture, or audio-visual installation, a sensitive and poetic approach re-presents objects as metaphors of human relations.
Humour in the work is essential to balance the undertone of concerns and views of assumptions. Shifting between figurative and abstract, the lack of visual information or clarity acts as a tool to illuminate the absurdity of the unconscious. Hoping to be both respectful and open-minded, the fragmented stories of individuals and communities are layered, revealed and retold.
**
Education
2021-2023 MA Fine Art at Arts University at Bournemouth. UK
2021 Awarded an International Excellence Scholarship for MA studies - AUB, UK.
2008-2011 BA (Hons) Fine Art at Arts University College at Bournemouth. UK.
2002 -2005 Rudolf Steiner school, Bergen. NOR
Artist studio
2017 -p.d.d Petroslen.art, Bergen. NOR
2011- 2016 Rake Arbeidfelleskap, Trondheim. NOR
