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Vebjørn
Sand
Born 1966, Bærum,
Norway
Painter and graphic artist
Sand took his art training at the National
Academy of Art in Oslo, the Academy of Art in Prague and The
Art Students League of New York.
He has been a student of the Norwegian
painters Walther Ås and Rolf Schønfeldt and American
painters, Ronald Sherr, Peter Cox and Michael Burban.
Vebjørn Sand is best known in
Norway for his public art projects such as the phenomenal
success of a 1997 winter outdoor exhibit of paintings from
expeditions to Antarctica. The installation, called "Trolslottet,"
attracted 150,000 visitors, becoming the largest audience
for an art exhibition by a contemporary artist in Norwegian
history. His second public project, The Kepler Star, was installed
near Oslo Airport. His third project, the Leonardo Bridge
was recently unveiled outside Oslo. This site has pages devoted
to each project.
Sand also engaged in healthy debate
with the Norwegian art establishment, where modernism has
been the undisputed orthodoxy, with his very public stand
on returning to vigorous mastery of classical technique. Sand
remains a potent and controversial voice in Norwegian cultural
life.
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Artist's
Statement
Above all, I want to express intense alive-ness, best expressed
in the Norwegian word "begeistring." This liveliness
is the germ of all growth, all life. I have encountered this
intense living essence for myself in Art.In a secularized
world where passive entertainment alienates people from any
profound encounter with themselves, a spiritual vacuum exists
to which the artist has a responsibility to address himself.
He must offer the possibility of wholeness and connectedness.
The artist, while exploring the new, must contextualize, inform
and demonstrate human virtue, the qualities of character which
are eternal.
We shouldn't live in the past, but
the Past should live in us. My art is deeply rooted in tradition.
I believe there is a real role in contemporary society for
a guardian of tradition. Through my art I wish to provide
a spiritual encounter, a mystical transformation, which grips
us, taking us out of our daily existence. Through art, I believe,
we can experience a higher awareness of the sacredness of
all of human existence.
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Statement by
US Exhibition Curator, Melinda Iverson
My primary concern in curating
Vebjørn Sand's first US exhibition has been to do justice
to the breadth and mastery of this extraordinary creator. I
believe Vebjørn Sand's paintings, sketches and projects
are united by an idea born in the Renaissance which has lost
its luster for familiarity and the over-analysis of specialization
in recent years. This idea is the caroming power of personal
experience.
Vebjorn Sand's work is deeply imbedded in his experience and
observation of the world. The distant turbulent skies of his
masterly landscapes, the eloquent postures of his human forms,
the sensuality of his portraiture are born from visceral experience.
This intrepid experiencer is also seen in the mesmerizing spectacle
of Trollslottet and the realization of the Leonardo Project.
It is the will to action fueled by a desire to transform this
plastic and carbon monoxide world into something of beauty and
meaning. This will to action could be called by the rather unfashionable
term, spiritual courage.
Vebjørn Sand's work inspires the viewer with the power
of personal creativity. They come to see the role of the artist
in society not passively standing, hat in hand, waiting for
society's acknowledgment of her or his existence but taking
on the act of public creator as a birthright and sacred trust.
The artist gives the tune the community can then improvise on
in daily life.
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