After-Images
1995
Sculpture Project in two places, Myre and Nyksund, Norland, Norway
Inghild Karlsen’s two-piece sculpture and lamp “After-Images”, with its fluctuating meanings, can be interpreted and understood in many ways, such as the visual form that is taken from everyday life and is based on the standard street lamps used in the area. The light in the lamp becomes invisible in the northern summer light. Furthermore, it becomes visible as a source of light during winter, when darkness takes over, and it isn’t easy to distinguish between night and day. The inspiration for the lamp’s form is the face of a woman, not any particular woman. Underneath the face is a seal head.
You can find the sculptures in two different locations – one in the centre of the municipality, in a small park where the street lamp casts its shadow on the surrounding grounds. The other is in a fishing village that was depopulated during the 1960s and 70s and practically abandoned for decades. The placement of the sculpture is in the harbour basin among the abandoned buildings. They express a clear, optimistic yet faded colour range. Here, the sculpture casts its shadow on the harbour’s surface.
The Myre sculpture faces north toward Nyksund, where the other sculpture faces south, toward Myre. As the sculptures face toward one another, they serve as directional markers and foster a sense of interdependence. This interdependence is reinforced by the sculptures’ near identical appearance; the two-part artwork thus becomes a whole.
This placement creates “a link, a connection, a line of contact” between what once was, what is now, and what will be in the future.”
Material: Granite, galvanised and lacquered steel, vacuum pressed acrylic, and an ever-burning lamp.
Photo: Kristoffer Dolmen +
