About the exhibition

The title of this exhibition – Convergation – is formed from the words Convergence and Congregation. Both words mean coming together, the former in a phenomenological sense, the latter in a social sense.

Convergence is a recurring subject of much of my work, and for this exhibition, I wanted to look at issues of convergence in the context of the site of the Trygve Lie Gallery, located in the Norwegian Seamen’s Church. Thus, convergence is a term I bring from my work in general, congregation is a term presented by the context of the church.

The work in this exhibition combines four elements: Convergence and symmetry as basic structures of interpretation, church architecture and the Rorscach blots as basic cultural sources of the interpretation of such structures.

By complicating the symmetry in photos of churches, and constructing kaleidoscopic views, I seek to estrange the viewer from a kind of symmetry that is so embedded in our culture that we might not otherwise consider it. Overlaying the photos are star maps put together in a similar way.

The paintings and the mirrors are based on the original inkblots that Psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach first published in 1921. The random shapes are given pictorial structure by mirroring. As pictures, they form the basis for a system of interpretations. Printed on some of the paintings are kaleidoscopic views of church interiors similar to the ones in the photos.