Steinar Elstrøm is exhibiting paintings and drawings, all executed in 2023. The images have been created as a series of whims, with no obvious connection. Each picture is finished, sent for framing, packed and stored. This has prevented the possibility of assessing the images in relation to each other and as an overall effect. The reason is the desire to execute each image separately, based on its distinctive inherent unity, without a common aesthetic standard. The images will hopefully spread in several directions. The starting point for the images are often views that are quickly recorded, which are then carried out through cumbersome, fumbling and error-prone processes in order to prepare the subject. In addition, the hope that something will occur that is not calculated, but comes because the game of chance makes something unknown possible.
Steinar Elstrøm (b. 1955) is educated at the Norwegian School of Handicrafts and Arts, Oslo (1978–1980) and Norwegian Academy of Arts, Oslo (1980–1984). He worked as a lecturer at the Department of Color until its closure in 2005 and taught group criticism, drawing and guidance at the Oslo Academy of Fine Arts (1990–2022). He has participated in larger group exhibitions at museums and galleries, shown works at Lhasa University in Tibet (2004) and exhibited separately in Norwegian galleries, e.g. a number of times in the Artists’ Association, most recently in 2013. He has been awarded decoration assignments, and his works have been purchased for public and private collections at the National Museum, KODE and Storebrand’s art collection.
