Birgit Hagen - Lonely heart
This spring's exhibition is a presentation by the textile artist Birgit Hagen (1912-2004) from Hallingdal.
In this large exhibition, we will show that her textiles and painted works have a depth and expressive power that still moves and that deserves a place in art history. The exhibition shows her many tapestries in an abstract design language as well as her painted plates in the series Sketches from a childhood. The connection to Hallingdal and nature meant enormous to Birgit Hagen's artistic production. Many of the tapestries are linked to places and moods from nature in Hallingdal. But Birgit Hagen also traveled a lot all her life and was oriented towards a larger world and drew inspiration from her travels. Birgit Hagen was constantly in dialogue with these places, with the shapes and materials.
Many of the tapestries are linked to places and moods from nature in Hallingdal. Birgit Hagen had a sincere desire to understand her own life and she confronted herself with the strong and traumatic experiences she experienced in her childhood. Out of all these fragments, she managed to create a content in a form that has such high quality regardless of time and place. She had an intense desire to find an expression for her inner images.
She created abstract tapestries and used materials such as wires, buttons, plastic and glass mixed with hand-dyed yarn from spelled sheep. She challenged the technique of tapestry in the form of both materials and expression at a time when most people still associated weaving with women's handicrafts or crafts in the form of applied art.
Birgit Hagen was lonely in the sense that she lived a life without the traditional family structure and secure financial framework. She gave her love to art, which women usually give to husbands and children. She was an artist who did not want too much attention around her own person and fame was not a goal.
The exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog written by the curator of the exhibition Ida M. Klingvall.