Leonard Rickhard: Between construction and collapse

Since the mid-1970s, Rickhard has repeated many of the same motifs in his paintings. Throughout his career, motifs such as the birdhouse, the night painter, the model table, the birch forest and abandoned barracks appear. The exhibition is based on this circular aspect of artistry. Through a series of adjoining exhibition rooms, the exhibition delves into the most famous motifs; images that often point to an underlying psychological and political seriousness. Many of the paintings are a processing of memories; memories from the artist’s own childhood just after the Second World War, expressed in images where the unsaid and unspoken are often more dominant than the explicitly political.

Leonard Rickhard (1945-2024) lived and worked in Arendal. He was educated at the Norwegian School of Handicrafts and Art Industry and the Norwegian Academy of Fine Arts (Oslo, 1966-1972). Previous solo exhibitions include Trondheim Art Museum (2020), ARoS (2016), Bomuldsfabrikken Kunsthall (2012), Festspillutstillingen, Bergen Kunsthall (2009), Sørlandet Art Museum (2005), Astrup Fearnley Museum (2001) and Lillehammer Art Museum (1996).