Sol Kjøk

Sol Kjøk is a Norwegian-born, NYC-based visual artist and founder of NOoSPHERE Arts, a nonprofit exhibition and performance venue on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, NYC.[1] She lives and works at The Mothership, the arts collective she founded in Brooklyn in 2005.[2]

Life and career

Sol Kjøk was born in Norway, where she grew up partly in Lillehammer, partly in Valdres.[3] She has drawn since her early childhood and had her first professional exhibition when she was sixteen.[4] Since then, her work has been in shown in 100 + shows worldwide in some twenty countries, including eight solo exhibits in the United States and Europe.[5] After studying in Paris, Vienna, Medellín and the US, she obtained four graduate degrees, including a Magistère from the Sorbonne, The University of Paris, a Master of Arts in Art History from the University of Cincinnati and an MFA in Painting from Parsons The New School for Design.[6][7] Kjøk has received over fifty awards and grants, including from the Tallinn International Drawing Triennial,[8] the National Academy Museum and School in New York,[9]Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Arts Council Norway, Office for Contemporary Art Norway,[10] Vederlagsfondet, The Puffin Foundation, The Relief Fund for Visual Artists, Knut Hamsun's Award, The George Sugarman Foundation[11] and the American-Scandinavian Foundation.[12] She has taught in art schools and universities as well as lectured at museums and art centers throughout Europe and the US.[13][14][15] Her works, which originate as performance, are in the permanent collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Teckningsmuseet in Laholm, Sweden, the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin, Germany and The Osten Museum of Drawings in Skopje, Macedonia,[16] as well as numerous private and corporate collections throughout the world.[17] She was chosen as one of twenty-one contemporary artists to be featured alongside Old Masters in the widely used textbook Drawing Essentials by Deborah A. Rockman[18] published by Oxford University Press.[19][20]

Work

Kjøk specializes in painting, drawing and performance with a focus on the nude figure.[21] New York art critic Meghan Dailey describes her core themes as "the body, its limits and the tension between its strength and its vulnerability."[22] In contrast to other artists who portray the nude at rest, Kjøk’s bodies are usually in constant motion. This dynamic quality springs from her unique, highly athletic, immersive artistic technique. Her work begins in her studio, with she and her models engaging in an acrobatic process , "...which incorporates picture taking, laborious posing and performance, cutting, collaging, rearranging and finally meditative reassemblage through drawing and painting..." [23]

Kjøk, a marathoner, approaches large-scale wall drawings as an "extreme sport". Of her 2009 solo-exhibit at Kunsthaus Tacheles, it was reported; “The wall work in Berlin was made in one week, during which Sol Kjøk lived in the gallery and worked virtually around the clock for seven intense consecutive days."[24] About the same exhibit, Meghan Dailey wrote, "For much of that period, she is alone (solitude being the optimal condition for maximum concentration), eating and sleeping very little. In the course of working so intensely, notions of the self and of time collapse, until mentally and physically, Kjøk reaches a heightened state in which she feels a part of the piece." [25] Kjøk has completed "wall drawing as extreme sport" rounds in four countries.[26]

Although highly physical in both its subject and execution, Kjøk's art also incorporates many spiritual themes. Of the paradoxically corporeal and spiritual quality of her work, Noel Kelly (curator) wrote “There is no doubt that these are sexual figures, However, the sometimes contorted physiognomy and physicality of the figures speaks of the sublime; a rapture wherein strength, tenderness, vigour and tempestuous urgency portray the essence of the human state." [27] Jason Franz of Xavier University echoed this, saying “Ms. Kjøk writes of love, but her images are not necessarily sexual; at least no more than any other human image. No, if they are born of love, and therefore evoke love, it is of a higher order."[28] Kjøk herself acknowledges this duality in her artist's statement, saying "I used to think that monastic seclusion at a safe distance from my body was the way to knowledge. Now I am convinced that human beings are clothed in flesh for a reason: The path is through the skin. Opting for either Dionysus or Apollo is choosing the easy way out; the challenge is to maintain the balance between the two." [29] Despite these claims of a spiritual vision, some have found her work shockingly sensual with one writer describing her figures as "a cross between the androgynous representatives of some future race and the randy hippies of Alex Comfort'sJoy of Sex”[30]

Reception

Kjøk’s work has received numerous accolades from critics. The prominent American critic Donald Kuspit praised her, saying, “Sol Kjok’s figures - male and female nudes - are exquisitely drawn, often down to the least detail of their muscular flesh and expressive faces, indicating that she is not only a master draftsperson but a student of the human condition.” […] “Certain passages of Swirling are sheer linear ecstasy - Kjøk seems to delight in the act of drawing itself, not simply in describing the figure.”[31]

New York Times art critic D. Dominick Lombardi wrote admiringly, "Sol Kjøk's art is playful and energetic.... Then there is a universal strength; a pleasure, a movement in her art that is clear and profound. It is obvious if you spend any time with her creations: Kjøk loves what she is doing. A feeling that emanates through every line, every form, every expression she records with obsessive precision..."[32]

Swedish writer Britte Montigny said, "It is expertly done. So dazzlingly accomplished that you all but miss the fact that Sol Kjøk's work also holds existential questions with a full range of feelings, spanning from safety-seeking anxiety and fear, to protective love and joy of life." [33]

In NYArts, Helmer Lång wrote "This makes for a kind of conceptual art where the artist directs the action, in such a way that the result reads both dramatic and mystifying. The viewer constantly feels that there is much more to this than a simple juggling with the organic forms of the human body; there are also symbolic accents and even a philosophy of life." [34]

Selected exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

Two-person exhibitions

Group exhibitions

Works in Museums and Public Collections

References

  1. ↑ Norway's most popular gallery in New York
  2. ↑ Maren Stette Mosaker, “SOL KJØK: On Travels and the Human Body» FIN Magazine, Volume 1, 2013
  3. ↑ Tore Feiring, “The Captain of the Mothership”, Lillehammer Byavis, March 5, 2015
  4. ↑ American Scandinavian Society
  5. ↑ American Scandinavian Society
  6. ↑ New School Alumni News
  7. ↑ Galleri Ramfjord Bio
  8. ↑ Tallinn International Drawing Triennial award
  9. ↑ National Academy Fellowship ,
  10. ↑ Office of Contemporary Art Norway Grant
  11. ↑ George Sugarman Foundation grant
  12. ↑ Artist Website
  13. ↑ Nordic Heritage Museum Lecture
  14. ↑ Manifest Gallery Lecture/Exhibit
  15. ↑ Galleri Ramfjord Bio
  16. ↑ Osten Prize
  17. ↑ Galleri Ramfjord Bio
  18. ↑ Drawing Essentials: A Guide to Drawing from Observation by Deborah Rockman[ http://books.google.com/books/about/Drawing_essentials.html?id=zFlLAQAAIAAJ]
  19. ↑ Drawing Essentials: A Guide to Drawing from Observation by Deborah Rockman[ http://books.google.com/books/about/Drawing_essentials.html?id=zFlLAQAAIAAJ]
  20. ↑ Selections from Drawing Essentials
  21. ↑ National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C
  22. ↑ Meghan Dailey, “ Always Somebody Moving” in exhibition catalogue: Entre Sol et Ciel, Berlin: Art House Tacheles, 2009 [ http://www.amazon.de/Sol-Kj%C3%B8k-ENTRE-SOL-CIEL/dp/3981250354]
  23. ↑ Petrea Frid, “Terrestrial Figures/Celestial Bodies: ». In: SWIRLING, exhibition catalogue. Oslo: Tegnerforbundet Galleri, 2001
  24. ↑ Ida Svingen Mo,"Analog Amour" translated from Norwegian SNITT: Magasin for visuell kommunikasjon, No. 6, 2009 Snitt (tidsskrift)
  25. ↑ Meghan Dailey, “ Always Somebody Moving” in exhibition catalogue: Entre Sol et Ciel, Berlin: Art House Tacheles, 2009
  26. ↑ Showing Bodies in Motion, Hallandsposten, July 4, 2008
  27. ↑ Noel Kelly Book of Swells Exhibition Catalogue. Laholm, Sweden: Teckningsmuseet [The Nordic Museum of Drawing], 2008
  28. ↑ Jason Franz, introduction in exhibition catalogue: String of Beads, Oslo: Galleri 27, 2005
  29. ↑ Sol Kjøk Artist Statement
  30. ↑ Felicia Feaster "Something Weird Grows in Brooklyn" in Creative Loafing Jan. 27th, 2005
  31. ↑ Donald B. Kuspit, “The Drawings of Sol Kjøk». In: SWIRLING, exhibition catalogue. Oslo: Tegnerforbundet Galleri, 2001
  32. ↑ D. Dominick Lombardi, essay in exhibition catalogue: String of Beads, Oslo: Galleri 27, 2005
  33. ↑ Britte Montigny,"Equilibristic Technique and Acrobatics" translated from Swedish Hallandsposten August 12, 2008
  34. ↑ Helmer Lång "Agile Attempts" NY Arts Magazine, 2008
  35. ↑ A Red Song in the Night, Galleri Ramfjord, Oslo
  36. ↑ Sol Kjøk at Galleri Ramfjord, Oslo
  37. ↑ Entre Sol et Ciel Exhibition
  38. ↑ Book of Swells. The Nordic Museum of Drawing
  39. ↑ Book of Swells catalog
  40. ↑ Agile Attempts by Helmer Lang, NY Arts
  41. ↑ "Sol Kjøk: Book of Swells" absolutearts.com
  42. ↑ And the World Cracked Open with Anki King, NOosphere Arts, NYC
  43. ↑ And the World Cracked Open, UnDo.net
  44. ↑ Un-Interrupted, Bill Hodges Gallery, NYC
  45. ↑ Un-Interrupted, Bill Hodges Gallery, NYC
  46. ↑ The Human Form Dominates w. Boris Zakic , Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, Ohio
  47. ↑ Zakic, Kjøk : a selection, 1999-2001 : paintings by Boris Zakic : string of beads : drawings by Sol Kjøk : [exhibition] January 27-February 24, 2006
  48. ↑ Kitchen Girls & Toy Boys, Rush Arts Gallery, NYC
  49. ↑ Kitchen Girls and Boy Toys, Sleek Magazine
  50. ↑ Kitchen Girls and Boy Toys, Rush Philanthropic Video
  51. ↑ "Let's be Friends" by Haajar Johnson, Art Parasites Magazine Jan. 21, 2013
  52. ↑ Tallinn Drawing Triennial
  53. ↑ Nothing to Declare Jorge B. Vargas Museum & Filipiniana Research Center, Manila, Philippines
  54. ↑ A Book about Death, Emily Harvey Foundation Gallery
  55. ↑ The Body as Image The Philoctetes Center
  56. ↑ Square Root of Drawing, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios
  57. ↑ Norwegian Artists in New York
  58. ↑ International Show. Juried by Donald B. Kuspit. Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

External links