Maria Hjelmeland

Bio

Pronoun: She/her. Birth year: 1976. Country: Norway. My previous works were mainly paintings. These juxtaposed art historical references to modernist painting with other areas such as art-deco, commercial design, brutalist architecture and printed textile traditions. The different visual styles were combined and processed in a fashion similar to hip hop's use of sampling – a reutilisation which interferes with and makes over the referent's original signification. The works create a new aesthetic experience that is in dialogue with earlier meaning, but which transforms it. The current project further develops these concerns, but does so through large-scale silk-screen collage. My working process continues to be one in which the aesthetic is explored through spontaneity, experiment, and a direct tactile engagement. At the same time, silk screen printing has enabled me to produce a slicker and graphic expression that has extended the potentialities offered by the strategies of juxtaposition and sampling.