Kristin Nordhøy
Returning & Turning
August 14 – September 20, 2025

Opening reception will be held on Thursday, August 14 from 5-8 PM.

For the start of our fall season, we are pleased to announce Returning & Turning, an exhibition of new paintings, drawings and wall drawings by Kristin Nordhøy.

Underpinned by an unswerving belief in the power of the grid and an astonishing level of technical prowess, Nordhøy’s paintings and drawings speak of pragmatic mathematical interests, intense concentration and an absolute obsession with the tiniest detail. The artist references performance in describing her activity in the studio and the work which grows out of it subtly remodels our brains, refreshing the visual cortex and opening our eyes to new ways of seeing. Paul Bonaventura (1)

Two site-specific wall drawings, one layered with charcoal dust and one with red Cadmium pigment, are setting the corners of the exhibition which occupies both the main space and the annex space of the gallery. These semi-transparent monochrome fields expose and incorporate traces and fragments of previous activity on the gallery walls.

In the first room of the main space, two large paintings from the Transparent series are juxtaposed with smaller works from the same series, vibrating with a visual hum throughout the space. In the next room we are confronted with a large and radiant charcoal painting from the Interlace series, which commands the seven meter foundation wall on its own, and three new medium-sized paintings from the series Resonant, executed with charcoal and oil paint on canvas in subtle shades of black, gray, blue and purple. In this series, Nordhøy applies thin layers of charcoal dust on the canvas, until it becomes as coal black as possible. She then draws up a grid using tape of three different widths and then applies the first coat of paint. The first layer of tape is decisive for the image’s overall and oscillating rhythm, and Nordhøy describes how there is a plan, but the decisions made along the way are intuitive. Thus, the working process for her paintings fluctuates between the stable and the fluid.

In the annex space, the charcoal wall drawing is accompanied by recent works from the series Inverted Drawings, where Nordhøy indents a weave of horizontal and vertical lines on white paper, before brushing on several layers of charcoal dust which reveals and completes the astonishingly intricate compositions.

Repetition is at the core of Nordhøy’s practice. Again and again, in her charcoal works, she creates strict, yet playful moiré patterns based on unruly black dust. The meticulous process of creating the soft-spoken, almost introverted drawings and paintings produces a clear tension: they contain a dizzying number of lines, yet emanate calmness. Live Drønen (2)

This exhibition also marks the release of a new monograph, Returning & Turning, published by Teknisk Industri, with essays by Paul Bonaventura and Live Drønen. The book features recent works from her painting series Interlace, Resonant, Transparent and new works from her Inverted Drawings series.

A book launch will be held at Galleri Riis on September 10 from 6-8pm.

1) Excerpt from the essay Stark Poetry in the forthcoming publication Kristin Nordhøy, Returning & Turning, Teknisk Industri 2025.
2) Excerpt from the essay Innate Systems and Divulging Newness in the forthcoming publication Returning & Turning.