Leonard Rickhard Paintings /anglais - Tapa dura

Leonhard Rickhard is an outstanding representative of Norwegian contemporary art. Owing to his unique vision and narrative techniques, he has revitalised painting as a means of artistic expression. In his conceptual paintings he portrays a fragmented and often enigmatic reality, inviting the viewer to discover and reconstruct his pictorial narrative. Rickhard's universe of motifs and figures can be traced back to the 1970s: birch forests, building sites and heaps of machinery are combined with finely detailed depictions of machine parts and fragments of models. His narrative picture sequences are often populated by melancholy and contemplative human figures. Rickhard has constantly questioned, challenged and recontextualised this pictorial universe. His artistic works occupy a unique position in Norwegian art, precisely because of their uncompromising reworking of recurring motifs. His paintings appear as solid and monumental constructions, which at the same time reveal a fundamental complexity, restlessness and vulnerability. The combination of conceptual strategies and formal aspects is one of the most significant strengths of his artistic oeuvre in the variegated field of contemporary art. Text in English, German & Norwegian.

Martin Herbert is a writer and critic based in Tunbridge Wells, kent/Great Britain. He writes regularly for Artforum, Frieze and Art Monthly. He is associate editor of ArtReview and a visiting lecturer at the Royal College of Art. Åsmund Thorkildsen is a Norwegian art historian specialising in modern and contemporary art. He is director of Drammens Museum, professor of art theory at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, and professor of art and design history at Buskerud University College, Campus Drammen. Jorunn Veiteberg lives and works in Bergen/Norway and Copenhagen/Denmark. She has worked as a critic, curator and head of arts in Norwegian broadcasting and television. Besides working as a freelance writer she is currently adjunct professor for the creative curating programme at Bergen Academy of Art and Design.