Inger-Johanne Brautaset


About

Inger-Johanne Brautaset has developed as an artist through deep absorption. In the process of creating new images she delves into the very essence of her materials, where technique and structure have their own artistic value and inherent power with limitless layers of possibilities. The artist finds this, with her creativity and tenacity. She is an original thinker. Having grown up surrounded by mountains in the vally of Sunndal in western Norway, she had as a starting point a visual landscape that was a clear frame of reference for her first years of work as an artist. Later, she turned her eye on archaeology and the classical tradition, maybe just because she is especially interested in history and because theoretical knowledge is always there as a basis for her creative visual work.

In the historical mosaics of the Mediterranean countries she has found inspiration for the latest images in her own handmade paper. It is wonderful to discover the power in her works, where I, as a viewer, get a sense of the influence of Roman mosaics, Norwegian tapestry weaving and international contemporary art.

In her production of handmade paper, Inger-Johanne Brautaset has looked to the East in order to learn from the ancient traditions that are still preserved in common usage, and developed further by artists as well as craftsmen. Handmade paper itself is a separate branch within contemporary international textile and fibre art, with its own biennials and workshops. Inger-Johanne Brautaset in this context has been a diligent participant, especially in her pursuit of innovation and the development of her own work. She is an outgoing artist who has been well aware of the value of nurturing contact with skilled colleagues from outside her country's borders. In this context she has made a great contribution and has been a significant resource, not least through her work in the organising team of the Nordic Textile Triennial.

Inger-Johanne Brautaset has achieved much in her field, and today has a distinguished position amoung Scandinavia's foremost fibre artists. In her world of imagery, abstract expression remains autonomous. At the same time, it enters into an enriching dialogue with the potential of the material.

Randi Nygaard Lium
former Director of Trondheim Art Museum

Traces in paper

The paper production process is a metaphor of ecological circulation. The process can be expressed thus: plant/water/ paper/life. In itself, the act of creating sheets of paper can be compared with the formation of new plains on earth. No two planes are similar, each carries an imprint of its own. The imprints in the surfaces are individual. Marks never existing before live their own new life.

In Inger-Johanne Brautaset's works we experience these new expanses of the earth. Level upon level of thick paper sheets, covered with signs, are pressed together, evoking memories of occurences in the landscape: Strata of soil and clay, deposits, glaciers, archaeological excavations, petroglyphs. The works relate in a silent, very personal, and simple language of archetypes - of original forms which we know, yet never before have seen, converted into the material of paper.

The paper production process deals with quality and knowledge of origins, of biodiversity, seeds, respect for life and death, the cycles of regeneration, growth-conditions, the sowing and the harvesting, the possibility of communication between eastern and western cultures. The paper process is outside time and points incessantly towards a new cycle which might encompass new qualities of life. Brautaset's works communicate a timeless geological circulation.

One of the basic ideas behind paper art is that by creating forms with layers of pulp, one works against the concept of paper as a neutral supporting surface. This empowering of the paper material changes the recognized relationship with art. Paper is no longer the mere carrier, but is in itself a part of, or equal with, the artistic expression.

The artistic expression of Inger-Johanne Brautaset is communicated in compressed paper sheets, imprinted with the uneven, frayed and torn edges characteristic of pulp, which are built into precise, concrete, sculptural forms, wich stand separately on the floor or hang as reliefs on the wall.

The expression of these works is very Nordic in their formal language and colour, and are weighty contributions to the manifestation of paperism. Craftsmanship and artistic expression join in a synthesis in the works of Brautaset.

Anne Vilsbøll
President IAPMA 1996-2000 - The International Association of Handpapermakers and Paper Artists