Slut dato: 2022-04-17

Toon Berghahn
Twilight Spaces
06.03 - 17.04

Link to the exhibited paintings

Link to Virtual Tour in the exhibition

The Dutch painter Toon Berghahn (1970) is a champion in generating compositions and light - a skill which he shows within this exhibition Twilight Spaces.
The exhibition opens Sunday 6th of March, and Toon will come in person to shed light on his artistry. 

Not only is Toon Berghahn well-known for his craft. He has as well a wide knowhow about the Dutch artist Rembrandt (1606-1669), whose collection is today at Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - a place where Toon shares his knowledge with the audience. In those situations Toon will be called in as a supervisor.

Not yet has Toon Berghahn been acknowledged to the same hights as Rembrandt - although Toon carries a personality with the potential to rise. 

The works of strong compositions and lights in his paintings, leaves one spellbound and it is a joy to observe the dynamics within particular spaces. a studio, a museum hall, a swimming pool or a sports hall. However, at the same time they look alienating and disturbing. Sometimes he places a house or modernist villa in a landscape environment enframed by a shimmering, disorienting (twilight) sky, while nature invades a room through a window. This ethereal light, often coming from different light sources, enhances feelings of desolation or melancholy, while offering comfort.

Toon Berghahn | DEEP BLUE | 105 x 160 cm |Mixed media on MDF - signed at the backside - 2021

Especially his double paintings are precious. Here, he was inspired by a chickens house which he came by at the countryside close to the German borderline. He took this construction to the next level, treating the chickens house like a gallery, and so he would paint and decorate its walls.
As a viewer, it means that not only will we observe Toon's painting as a regular art piece hanging on the wall; we will as well see more paintings within the painting due to the seen-through technique. This calls in our ability to observe his paintings in a new way, as it holds deep dynamics.  

Human presence is only suggested by left traces. Often it is personal memories of a location or space that Berghahn processes in his paintings, places that are anchored in his memories and senses. By stripping them of any direct personal charge, he gives these images a universal meaning. Those are space specific places, and still you will get the impression that there is something familiar about each of them.

Berghahn's work is in numerous corporate and private collections. He was awarded or nominated several times, including for the Royal Prize for Painting and has received several grants for proven talent from the Dutch Mondriaan Fund.

Facts:

Artist: Toon Berghahn (born 1970)
Time: 06.03 - 17.04
Title: Twilight Spaces
Numbers: 20 malerier
Web - link: Toon Berghahn

Slut dato: 2022-02-27

The Duel

Brandt/Martinussen

14.01 – 28.02

Click for virtual tour

A regular fight occurs when the Norwegian artist Marius Martinussen and the German artist Maxim Brandt exhibit their works in Gallery NB. It will be a pictorial duel between figuration and abstraction, between color and form, between the two very different personalities, between Oslo and Berlin.

The duel marks the first show of the year in Galleri NB and presents new works by figurative artist Maxim Brandt (1986) and abstract artist Marius Martinussen (1978).

In a classic duel with rapiers and handguns, drive is expected from the duellants’ side. Along with this exchange of energy comes a creative urge which at its peak is being reflected in an ecstatic audience. In Galleri NBs current duel, the artists meet because of their many contrasts with the intensity in color and light as the main common denominator.

With a confident style, Maxim Brandt and Marius Martinussen excel in their understanding for developing compositions within visual art.

Link to: YouTube discussion between Maxim Brandt and Marius Martinussen

Maxim Brandt

Photolink to the paintings of Maxim Brandt

In Brandt’s works we meet an accuracy behind the released motives. With references to society and the existing surroundings, he makes a wonderful disturbing alternative to our normal perpection and sensuous understanding from symbolic inputs. He combines symbols and elements within a surrealistic wholeness, consequent as a poetic composition. Brandts motives and the language that inspires his practice, have associations among themselves, one word leading to the next one. Likewise we discover that one element lurks behind the next element. In a modern, complex world, we find hundreds of elements intertwined, yet belonging to certain categories in our minds.  

The paintings reflects Brandts trained ability to puncture these inherritaged logics, and he takes us skillfully to a dreamlike island made by surreal beauty.

Marius Martinussen

Photolink to the paintings of Marius Martinussen

Marius Martinussen discovers contrasts within a painting by his unique layer-on-top-of-layer-technique, whilst demonstrating his will to explore by using intense painting methods with airbrush combined with slender traces from syringes.

This work process can be called mathematical and harmonic as it is taking form through its own complex path. The language that Martinussen circles around carries a certain depth in it as well as a very focused boldness, which stems from an overarching wish to lose some controle during the creation of his works.

Technically he navigates in various materials using and combining templates, tape and airbrush, which come together in structured motives with a delicate precision. His paintings holds a spaciousness for moments of great fascination.

The duel between Maxim Brandt and Marius Martinussen stages both artists’ abilities for communicating with great originality. The exhibition tributes and highlights the artists’ different qualities and welcomes reflection about what may come across as interesting for all guests who visits The Duel. 

Facts:

Title: THE DUEL

Time: 14.01 – 28.02

Opening: Friday the 14^th of January at 15:00 – 17:00

Artists:
Maxim Brandt, 1986, Berlin
Marius Martinussen, 1978, Oslo

Slut dato: 2022-01-09