Viking-Venus-Art-Catalog

THE RESTAURANT | DECK 2
ASTRID NONDAL
1958 NORWAY OIL ON LINEN
Astrid Nondal is a Norwegian painter who explores the close connection between culture and nature. Her work is influenced to a large extent
by her wanderings in nature, and she has worked extensively with landscape and nature-related motifs in the borderland between natural
Romanticism and surrealism.
Nondal grew up in western Norway, a stunning region that served as one of the core areas of Norwegian National Romanticism in the 1800s.
Her paintings draw heavily from this landscape as well as on the woods around Oslo, where she currently lives.
The landscape around Nondal’s hometown of Tyssedal, located along a narrow fjord between Folgefonna and Hardangervidda, was in its time
sought out by travelers and Romantics because of its overwhelming nature. The area was later industrialized and has since become characterized
by a strong human touch through the development of power stations and heavy industry. This observation serves as a strong metaphor in Nondal’s
artistry perceiving nature as enticing and beautiful yet intimidating and unpredictable. Thus, she often aims to portray double meanings in her
works, which are seemingly harmonious and lovely but have an underlying turmoil created by the gap between the natural and human-made.
In this way, Nondal uses nature as a mirror to understand and seek out her own inner nature.
WANDERINGS/SOUTHEAST | 2018
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