Malerier

The exhibition opening will take place on Saturday, February 6 at 12:00 PM. The artists will be present, and there will be musical performances by the Oslo Chamber Orchestra (Oslo Kammerorkester), conducted by Peters Szilvay. The exhibitions will run until January 31.

Wenche Øyen’s paintings present a striking contrast to Nicholas’s busy urban landscapes. Here, we encounter the meditative landscape—a mother-of-pearl shimmering bay after sunset, a faintly peach-coloured sky just before sunrise, a cold and misty winter atmosphere. She seeks out the emotional, the atmospheric. Always a twilight, strictly subdued, where cool and warm tones of light and dark exist simultaneously. In the soft transitions and suggestive brushstrokes, appears what can be interpreted as landscape emerges, as well as what is always most clearly present: the atmospheric—light and air.

Wenche Øyen is a versatile artist. In addition to working as a visual artist, she is a violinist with the Oslo Chamber Orchestra. In 1989, she followed the rehearsals of King Lear, which resulted in a series of paintings that now hang in the foyer of the National Theatre as a tribute to a remarkable production. Wenche Øyen was born in Bærum in 1946 and was educated at the National College of Art and Design, the National Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo, and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, Netherlands. She has held numerous solo exhibitions, including at Kunstnerforbundet in 1981 and 1990, Casa de Cultura in Spain in 1997, and the Norwegian Forest Museum in Elverum in 1997. She has participated in many group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, received numerous awards and distinctions, and is represented in the collections of Bislett University College, the Norwegian Arts Council, the National Gallery, the National Touring Exhibitions (Riksgalleriet), Asker Municipality, the National Theatre, and Statoil.

Text translated by Oslo Kunstforening in 2025