Subterranea
Hordaland Kunstsenter
2020
Billedhuggerforeningen
2019
Hordaland Kunstsenter
2020
Billedhuggerforeningen
2019
“ In 'Subterranea' we encounter a deserted urban landscape constructed of raw industrial materials, inhabited only by a number of strange animals. The animals have a familiarity to species we have seen before, either in pictures or in reality. The technique Ørmen uses to mold the sculptures opens up for abstractions and distortions. They are not created from models in plaster or clay, but formed out of negative imprints shaped in oil sand, which are then filled with liquid bronze. She casts all of the sculptures in her own foundry and has developed a unique method emphasizing a synergetic approach to her choice of materials. In result, the casted objects can be difficult to date at first glance - they might look like objects found in the ground, remnants of a former civilization, affected by the ravages of time.
The organically shaped bronze casts find their support by embracing or clinging onto closed metal pipe systems. These metal tubes are not merely a stand, but an integrated part of the sculptural object; a coupling of natural bodies with prosthetic devices. Between the mass-produced elements and the innocent, uniquely casted animals there lays a darker undertone. Do the almost cyborg-like qualities empower the animals, or do the tubes imprison them like cages?
Excerpts from press release / Hordaland Kunstsenter / 2020