Arne Bendik Sjur

My posting has been, and will probably continue to be erratic. Blogging just falls down my priority list really fast.



Last Thursday was the gallery walk and considering how close I live, I should really go more. A couple of my friends from Oly drove up, and Tyler brought his friend from school. We had a grand time that consisted of deconstructing art and eating hot dogs. I didn't see a much that impressed me, and some of the work at the TK Artists Lofts was horrible.

So what I absolutly loved was at The Davidson Gallery. The main show was by a Norwegian print maker named Arne Bendik Sjur, and I have no idea how to correctly pronounce his name.

Here is what the Davidson has to say about the show: Personal Transformation is an exhibition of finely detailed drypoints spanning the past twenty years by contemporary Norwegian artist Arne Bendik Sjur. His work is about people and relationships. Sjur creates his evolving series by working on a single plate, printing an edition, then reworking the existing plate through multiple states. This continues until the series is complete. By obscuring and adding elements, the artist is able to portray the passage of time, transformations, and metamorphoses - suggesting the transient nature of reality. The small scale of each work and the meticulous rendering draws in the viewer and captures the imagination. Also included in the exhibition will be Sjur's most recent insect images and subjects revisiting his Chinese experiences in a series of sampans. Mr. Sjur's work has been exhibited in numerous museums in Northern Europe and Scandinavia.



Unfortunetly, The Davidson's website doesn't have examples that show how narrative these images are, which is what I love the most about Sjur's prints. I guess this comes from years of comics (ahem, Graphic Novels), but when two images are framed together all I can see is the gutter, and what might be going on. I'm also attracted to the weirdness of prints. Even the portraits have an otherworldly quality which I think comes from the etching plate, but could be all style.



I think I'll be adding Arne Bendik Sjur to my favorite artists list.

Edit: Some how I completely missed Sjur's personal site. Here is the link!