I've been thinking about coastlines lately.

While working on a painting I realised that the outlines of submerged bodies sometimes resemble maps. As I was transferring the drawing of a recent work on canvas, the outlines looked similar to a sea map. The rugged edges resembled almost Norways coastline.

It made me wonder whether identity is formed like a coastline—not by fixed borders but through constant encounters with the world around it..

As I have been making a home on this rugged coastline that I love so much, it is kind of a picture of this process. I do have to adjust to the culture, to the land and its people. I have to merge to this country to be part of it. and in that process I am not loosing my identity, it’s just another facet of it that finds more expression.

I had been struggling with this thought - the version of me that was alive in a certain place with a certain group of people, is never quite the same in a different setting. It is also what is expressed in the paintings. Because even thought he bodies can look distorted or through the surface, I know they are whole and the same underneath.

For me it is also a picture that reflects my faith - in a way God holds and carries all of my past presence and future, my dreams and memories, even the ones I have forgotten.

“Tidal” my exhibition is actually extended for a week longer until next Tuesday. So If you are in Ålesund and want to still see it, it is still possible.

Thank you for joining the journey,

Silvia