Eirik Jahnsenʼs work brings the viewer to a state of bodily exploration and wonder. By combining expressive gestures, transformed materials, colour and movement, he triggers the viewer to explore something of themselves as they encounter Eirik’s objects and installations. The final meaning of the work relies on the unique connection with the observer. Interested in the infinite possibilities of materials, his works are the results of experimentation and play in the studio, embracing chance to find ways to exceed the limitations of our ideals. They are an outcome of a continuous practice where he visualizes and documents energies, entropy and other processes.

Material research and experimentation form the basis of Eirik’s artistic practise, wherein he acts as an alchemist in search of the right substance to make unexpected shapes, colours and perspectives. In this way he pushes the possibilities of the material and our perception. His metal sculptures embody a contrast between strength and fragility, combining the intangible characteristics of light and the physicality of solid objects. Their mirrored shapes communicate with the surroundings and transform them, inviting you to enter different modes of perception through sensory exploration.

• Exhibitions at Galerie Bart: Transformations, Transmutations 2022 & Overflowing Overgrowth 2021.

Eirik Jahnsen, born in 1985 in Bergen, Norway, currently lives and studies in Groningen. He graduated from the Minerva Art Academy Groningen in 2017 with a Bachelor of Fine Art after two years of pre-academic art education in Norway. In 2021 Eirik graduated from his Master of Painting at the Frank Mohr Institute. In addition, he has been in residence at Transborder Collective in Mureck, SL/AU and at VDHG Leeuwarden, both in 2019 and Kunsthuis SYB, Beetsterzwaag in 2017.

Since 2015, Eirik has been exhibiting and performing. Next to Flutgrabe E.V. in Berlin and In4Art project-space Amsterdam, many exhibition spaces in the north of the Netherlands have featured his work, such as NP3, Sign and Machinefabriek NNT in Groningen, Cultural Embassies Groningen and Leeuwarden, and VHDG in Leeuwarden and Kunsthal 45, Den Helder. In 2018 he was commissioned by Hanze University of Applied Sciences to install a permanent sculpture in their monumental building, the Wiebenga complex. Earlier, his sculptures have been included in the MAL collection and collection In4Art.  Eirik’s collaboration with Galerie Bart started in 2021 with a new sculpture in the gallery’s first outdoor exhibition Overflowing Overgrowth 2021.

Eirik participated in Art Fairs such as Art Away 2021, This Art Road Show 2020 and Transborder Festival 2019, Mureck, SL/AU. Since 2014 he is part of the audio-visual performance duo ‘Farbenrausch’ with Berlin-based musician Simon Schmidt. Since, they have performed regularly, for instance at TED-x Groningen in 2017 and Flutengrabe E.V. Berlin and around Groningen. Since 2018 he has been part of the trio Eigen Risico, performing at OT301, and The School in Amsterdam, and the ‘Le Mini Who?’ in Utrecht, to name a few.

• view complete cv as pdf.

2020 •
29.08 Kunstblijfteenraadsel This Road Show – KNSM, by Paul Voors.

2019 •
02.12 Leeuwarder Courant Noorse kunstenaar zet autowrak op rotonde voor Fuerza Bruta, editorial.
29.11 De Zwettekrant Groots festival bij Mannen van Staal, editorial, p. 12-13.

2018 •
HanzeMag Repo, Bijzondere kunstwerken in nieuwe Wiebenga gebouw.
Zomaar Radio #162 Artist Talks by Groninger Culturele Ambassade. (starts at 16:35).
16.11 Trendbeheer Water Waterstof @ Groninger Culturele Ambassade in Leeuwarden, by Niels Post.