Welcome to "the close things" - an art exhibition with Unni Askeland
DÁIDDA opens the autumn season with a new exhibition by Unni Askeland. She has been an important part of our gallery since the beginning, and every time she exhibits with us, her own energy arises. Now she is back with fresh works under the title "things close to us" - and we invite you to join us.
Opening
📅 Thursday, September 4th at 6:00 PM
📍 DÁIDDA gallery
The artist himself will be present. We look forward to an atmospheric evening together with both old and new friends of the gallery.
The exhibition runs until September 21st .
About the artist
Unni Askeland (b. 1962) is one of Norway's most prominent contemporary artists, known for her powerful expression, strong colors and ability to balance between the raw and the vulnerable. She has been a clear voice in Norwegian art for decades, with exhibitions nationally and internationally.
Askeland often works in series where she explores everything from the intimate and everyday to big existential questions. She creates images that strike a chord with the audience.
About the exhibition
When you go too far – is it near enough? Tell me what it's like when you go too far
– Wire, Former Airline (1979)
Text by Tommy Olsson, Trondheim August 22, 2025:
It is not necessarily close just because it is personal, and it is not at all certain that it is personal just because it is close. But, one does not exclude the other. In an artistry like Unni Askeland's, where biographical facts regularly seep into series of images (and it is right to see them as series), the dynamic has long been established between what is so personal that you don't tell anyone about it, in combination with a visual language based on pop art's emphasis on the superficial. A platform that has proven to hold a good deal of excess. Or, to put it a little lower; drool – and I'm still talking about the end result, how much drool you choose to have in your life itself is basically unimportant as long as you still manage to expose the endless lonely night of the soul that lies behind all the desire-oriented darkness you desperately have to learn to navigate as an adult.
But here are also the actual, concretely close things: panties and bra – no one should be surprised by the leopard print – and, better, and even closer; the skin under the underwear. It is just a way to get closer. But then it is painting, not photography, and therefore the medium functions as a protective filter in the context. Close, but not that close. But then this is also about contemporary tools for closeness; the camera lenses of your iPhone, and the webcam on your MacBook Air. Painted, as matter of factly as the spots in the leopard print. A combination of visual material that emphasizes that what is close in practice can be located on the other side of the globe. That the most intensely close possibly (and it is a terrible thought, but I know enough about it here to think it may unfortunately be true) is only fired up below, given a certain actual distance and regular electronic transmission. It's been a long time since we lived analog lives, and now we'll never die – our ghosts will live on as propaganda bots in social media, and somewhere the documentation of our actual interactivity will be stored and repeated as increasingly tailored and specially oriented pornography for those with increasingly peculiar special interests, in an endless flood of zeros and ones. There's nothing judgmental about this, I'm just saying it like it is. And this is just part of what's going on here anyway – what I naturally go after first.
Because here are also the things that one relates to more unproblematically as close things: coffee cup, cigarette, wine glass, other people, lamp, a stack of books, a pair of glasses, and the very reason for everything: Mom. But, more than anything, and what makes me think that Unni Askeland has always, first and foremost, been, is and will be a genuine romantic – here are a lot of flowers. Most strikingly, a collection of red roses, conjured up with such thick, rich paint that they most appear as something to be eaten. It is rare that I think of flowers – painted or not – as just insanely delicious, but it happens. How close any of this hits depends, as always, on the eyes that see, but I am adamant that she is a romantic. Otherwise she would never have been able to. Things can be more or less personal, but how close something actually is does not have to be a question of being in the same room. Quite the opposite, actually.
A highlight during the exhibition
🎨🍷 Sip & Paint with Unni Askeland
📅 Saturday 6 September at 17.00
A rare opportunity to learn directly from the artist. Over three inspiring hours, Unni guides participants from sketch to finished portrait painting – in the middle of the exhibition, surrounded by her own works.
👉 Register here: Sip & Paint – Unni Askeland
Opening hours
Tuesday–Thursday: 11–17
Friday: 12–17
Saturday–Sunday: 12–15
(or by appointment)
We look forward to sharing a strong and personal exhibition with you – welcome to DÁIDDA!