Property Painting 
in collaboration with Fredrik Værslev

Property Paintings takes as its starting point a still existing, yet several hundred years old Norwegian painterly tradition. The project investigates the possibilities of the social-realistic painting as a potential moderator for class, and as a symbol for pride in relation to property and personal aesthetic display.

Historically, the “property-paintings” has been very much influenced by class issues, where economy decided how skilled a painter one could employ, from the finest of landscape and architecture painters, to “door-to-door” painters that got paid with food and a place to live during the making of  the painting.

As an investigating, redefining, continuation of this tradition, we have invited 12 house owners to participate in our project so far. All invited house owners will get the painting, and framing of the painting free of cost. The house owners also choose size, placement, and framing for their paintings. In return, we ask to photograph the painting in its new setting, where the artists solely decide the amount of interior information. By contrast to the traditional way of  “property-paintings”, one very skilled painter will put the same precision and effort into each painting and home, where the selection of house owners stretch from factory workers, to stockbrokers and art collectors. 

And where all forms of profession, origin and religion is flat lined through art.

In the end, will a selection of 12 interiors, with house owners from different statuses, be presented as 12 photographs, and12 private installations.