+ Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery
Meanwhile, Pieski’s painting, collage and sculptural works, which often hark to the icy hues and bare landscapes of the North, incorporate textiles from Sami clothing, such as the colourful ruffles that adorn the hems of dresses and the thick, long tassels found in shawls. Her paintings create a fascinating dialogue between the natural landscape and the people who have lived for millennia, and the textiles serve as an homage to the people who have lived – and still live – in the locations she paints. Delicate, feathery brush strokes create works that evoke the hoar of nighttime frost, blossoming across a window pane; or the morning dew on a springtime landscape, soft yellows and greens enveloped with the fluffy white of frost-tipped stems. Others still bring with them the brooding heaviness of winter clouds, pregnant with the promise of snow, that strange unearthly hue that heralds icy blasts. The eye travels across the surface of the work, squinting slightly, as if trying to see through snow-covered glasses, then is suddenly drawn down to a bright red or green ruffle, or pastel tassels, a fun and coy flourish to offset the natural landscape, much as the iconic blue and red costume of the Sami people must appear when traversing against the backdrop of an endless winter landscape. These paintings interpret Pieski’s own relationship to her environment, each place’s histories, myths and legends and her experiences within them. The paintings also have an energy to them – much as one may feel the forest is looking back at them, so too these paintings are aware of the viewer, and one cannot ignore the life force running through them. Meanwhile, her installation, Ruossalas Bálágat | Crossing Paths, brings to an immersive peak this sensation of landscape. Suspended from a wooden frame hung from the ceiling are swathes of Sami tassels in a spectrum of colours reminiscent of an autumn landscape. Like icicles, they are draped, allowing viewers to walk into this forest of colour and highlighting the labour-intensive assembly of the work that harks to the joy of simple repetition and ritual.
Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery
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