» Issue 01/2012: Identity, Fashion and Adornment
Anna Talbot: Silver Deer (detail). Photo: Laila Meyrick
From Forest Deep to Metropolitan Poster Girl
Text: Lars Elton
Published: 1 Feb 2012
Young Norwegian jewellery artists are hitting the international venues with exceptional designs. But – have these artists turned their back on the traditional Norwegian sources of inspiration – the deep forests and rough seas? Why is this new generation so successful? And what has happened before they came along?
At Collect in London last year, – «the premier annual fair in Europe for international contemporary craft of museum quality» – a necklace by Elise Hatlø was pictured on a poster that hung throughout London’s Underground. That was of course of great value to the artist, but it also symbolizes of the rising recognition Norwegian jewellery is receiving abroad.
The fact that this is happening might seem coincidental, but it is not. It is the result of decades of hard work, strategic positioning and a will to build confidence and reputation amongst artists who traditionally have had an inferior ranking in the (Norwegian) artist hierarchy.
One might say: Finally! We now have a generation of jewellery artists who do see them selves as a natural part of an international scene. And who act accordingly.
My aim is not to strip Elise Hatlø of well deserved recognition. She is a fantastic artist. 
But the Collect poster story would not have happened without the persistent work of The Norwegian Association for Arts and Crafts, Norske Kunsthåndverkere. For the last decades NK has done a tremendous job promoting Norwegian contemporary craft. The organization runs two galleries named Format, centrally located in Norway’s capital Oslo and in Bergen, the country’s second largest city. NK organizes juried annual exhibitions of Norwegian contemporary craft and touring exhibitions abroad. NK does what it can to raise the status of contemporary craft in general, both at home and abroad.
At Collect Elise Hatlø was one of three Norwegian jewellery artists exhibiting at the stand organized by Format. The other two were Anna Talbot and Kirsti Reinsborg Grov, all relatively recent graduates from Oslo National Academy of the Arts. This school is another side to the story of the growing success of Norwegian jewellery artists.
The works of Hatlø, Reinsborg Grov and Talbot can be characterized with adjectives such as «playful», «skilled» and «original». Kirsti Reinsborg Grov is the oldest of the three, making jewellery inspired by LEGO, gaming pieces and molecules. Anna Talbot makes epic compositions in combinations of wood and metal, inspired by nature, fairy tales, myths and legends. Elise Hatlø creates variations of lace and ornaments in metal, and combines them with glittering jewels and other stones from nature. Her jewellery is akin to a kind of filigree work that is most challenging. It has a hint of gothic inspiration, a quality that – for some – might link her jewellery to the vibrant Norwegian black metal music scene.
In addition to Format the privately-owned gallery Kunst1 had a stand at Collect in 2011, with the jewellery artists Millie Behrens, Liv Blåvarp, Nanna Melland and Åse-Marit Thorbjørnsrud among the eleven artists showcased. This group of artists belongs to the medium and older generation. Liv Blåvarp has built up a worldwide reputation on account of her necklaces made with wooden joints. They are very beautiful, astonishingly lightweight, flexible and extremely wearable.
With works consisting of numerous, small, inter-knitted elements, Nanna Melland engages with the tradition of Tone Vigeland, a living legend and veteran who is one of two contemporary, 
Norwegian jewellery artists to have a monograph published by the German publishing house Arnoldsche Kunstverlag. (The other is Sigurd Bronger.) When it comes to construction principles the affinity between Vigeland and Melland is evident in the necklace 687 Years , for which she received the National Contemporary Craft Award in 2008. It consists of a bundle of spiral contraceptive devices (IUDs) collected from several women, with the title hinting at the total time the spirals have been inside the women’s bodies.
Nanna Melland received her MA from the Art Academy in Munich, Germany, a fact that enriches the Norwegian jewellery-art scene. Yet the high quality of the national education is also important for the upswing of Norwegian jewellery. During the last decades we have had many exciting, young jewellery artists graduating from Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO). 
The two professors at the academy’s Metal and Jewellery Department, Ingjerd Hanevold and Heidi Sand (who will be exhibiting with Format at Collect this year, together with Kathrine Lindman, Elise Hatlø and Anna Talbot), are active with exhibitions themselves, and it seems that the influence they have had on their students is one of great vitality and inspiration.
In addition to the jewellery artists who are active within the contemporary craft movement, the more traditional goldsmiths have also done their part to heighten creativity. Their organisation, Norsk gullsmedforbund, organizes a biannual competition in which also members of NK can participate. A new competition is soon to be launched, but the last winner, in 2010, is worth mentioning. Originally a German, Martina Prosper won with a necklace made of plastic strips – the kind normally used to bind cables and for other handy purposes. She works at Expo Arte in Oslo, a jewellery shop that sells jewellery and exhibits artist from both professions.
Elise Hatlø and Anna Talbot both studied at KHiO. Together with ten other metal and jewellery artists, they founded KL!NK in 2009. All the group members have a MA and use metal as the base material for their artwork.
KL!NK’s members are already experienced exhibitors. At present they are holding their first show abroad, at DesignForum in Helsinki, Finland. This show will last through the 5th of February and then will travel on to Schmuck 2012, the jewellery fair in Munich, Germany (14–20 March). And as we are touching on Schmuck, two Norwegian artists have been selected for this year’s official show: Liv Blåvarp and Sigurd Bronger’s objects will be presented alongside works by 63 other jewellery artists, selected among 665 applicants.
Studying the works produced by the twelve KL!NK artists, one notices that many of them draw inspiration from nature. 
This is to be found in varying degrees in the works of Kjetil Aschim, Toril Bonsaksen, Ingrid Holand, Anne Léger, Helene J. Linkosuonio, Benedicte Lyssand and Anna Talbot. On the other hand the Klink artists Silje Bergsvik, Hedda Bjerkeli, Elise Hatlø, Trond Johansen and Runa Vethal Stølen are not especially inspired by nature – for some of them, the sources of inspiration are far removed indeed. Other artists who do not take recourse in nature are Sigurd Bronger and Johannes Vemren Rygh – just to name a few. Vemren Rygh finds inspiration in construction work and building sites. Bronger is probably the Norwegian jewellery artist with the longest and broadest international career. His construction-based jewellery is original, it has humour, and the technical skills needed to produce his works are extremely demanding.
Contemporary Norwegian jewellery has a multitude of expressions. Still, it might seem that many Norwegian jewellery artists use nature as their primal source for ideas. One reason for this might be that they have been influenced by the two professors at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Both have used natural elements in their jewellery. Ingjerd Hanevold draws explicitly on nature in her series «Nature morte», exhibited at the artist-owned gallery Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo in 2007. This exhibition presented a series of brooches constructed with a conic base mounted with casts of small branches, seed capsules and other natural elements. Hanevold’s colleague Heidi Sand has used abstractions of natural elements, such as leaves and flowers. But the two artists and professors have a history of making objects that are totally abstract and (post-) modernist in their fashion – as Sand showed in her exhibition at Galleri RAM in 2011. Although the title «Internal Landscapes» refers to nature in the form of the human body, the objects and the theme of the exhibition drew in equal measure on psychology.
This use of nature as a source of inspiration may seem only to be expected, given that nature is seldom far from the «average» Norwegian’s front door. Norway has more mountains and wild coastline than most other countries in the world. Consequently, a typical notion about Norwegians is that we are especially preoccupied with nature, and that the use of the (preferably unspoiled) natural landscape for recreational purposes is a must for anyone who wants to call themselves Norwegian. Hiking, skiing and sailing are among the most popular leisure activities, and time spent in the great outdoors is treasured.
One might therefore observe that much Norwegian jewellery is inspired by nature. This is, however, only part of the picture. With a rising global awareness and participation abroad, Norwegian jewellery artists are finding new ways of expressing themselves.
How important nature is in this context is hard to say. But one thing is certain: nature will always be a part of Norwegian identity, but more and more in connection with and mixed with other trends. We know that the country’s sovereign wealth funds (drawn from oil revenues) have made Norway the «annerledeslandet» – an expression implying that Norway sees itself as fundamentally different from European Union countries.
Norway’s current wealth has enabled the building of KHiO, one of the best schools in its field, and the education of artists who dare to find and follow their own paths. This independence is something Norwegians tend to see as a core aspect of their identity. To paraphrase Begriffenfeldt in Henrik Ibsen’s play Peer Gynt: «To be oneself – enough!»
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LARS ELTON is a freelance journalist and editor based in Oslo. Among others he is the art- and architectural critic for VG, the biggest, Norwegian daily newspaper.
Anna Talbot: Silver Deer (detail). Photo: Laila Meyrick
Elise Hatlø: Grandma sings the blues, 2012.
Nanna Melland: 687 Years, 2008
Liv Blåvarp: Sundance. 2011
Toril Bonsaksen: Thinking about the flyway I, 2011
Kirsti Reinsborg Grov: Spillbrikker, 2007.
Ingjerd Hanevold: Nature morte, 2007
Anna Talbot: Don’t lead me astray, 2012
Heidi Sand: Gut feeling, 2011
Sigurd Bronger: Stereo
Runa Vethal Stølen: Steelwire Brooch, 2011