Linda Soh Trengereid - Norway

Festival Exhibition: Gjengklang

Nature speaks a universal and eternal language. It is an ancient voice that has been present long before humans began to put words to the world around them, and that will outlive us. The natural landscape is both alluring and untamable, full of stories tied to traditions and mythology. In the encounter with nature, a resonance arises deep within us, but also a restlessness, a feeling of both something familiar and foreign - an echo from another time.

In the exhibition Gjenklang , the audience encounters the landscape of Vestland. Trengereid's art depicts landscape, belonging and something timeless. In her landscape paintings, nature is a living, pulsating organism – which exists both inside and outside of ourselves. The main work in the exhibition is a monumental painting in charcoal and acrylic that depicts a forest landscape with human-like creatures praying for something – or someone? The creatures seem to be woven together with the roots and the landscape itself. They appear as both prehistoric and from the distant future. Are they praying for descendants, a legacy, a future – or a should? Who are we without what came before us?

At the opening of the festival exhibition on Wednesday, July 2, there will be a musical performance by multi-guitarist Ole André Farstad.

The festival exhibition is held in collaboration with Sogn og Fjordane Art Museum.

Linda Soh Trengereid (b. Seoul, South Korea, 1984) grew up in Sotra outside Bergen. She lives and works in Bergen and completed her education at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design in 2011.

Trengereid has had solo exhibitions at Høyersten Contemporary in Bergen, KUBE and QB Gallery in Oslo, LNM in Oslo, Kunstgarasjen in Bergen and Voss Kulturhus. She has participated in the Vevringutstillinga, Vestlandsutstillinga and Høstutstillinga, as well as group exhibitions at Nitja Center for Contemporary Art in Lillestrøm, Kristiansand Kunsthall, Galleri MELK in Oslo, Stavanger Kunstmuseum and Bomuldsfabriken Kunsthall in Arendal.

Her work has been purchased by Sogn og Fjordane Art Museum, KODE, Stavanger Art Museum, Haukeland University Hospital, the University of Bergen and Fana Kulturhus.