Notodden exhibition. Photo: Marek Padowski
Artist of the Month, Norway
Letting the invisible thread form her art For over 40 years, the leading Norwegian artist Ragnhild Monsen has created beautiful and colourful textile art inspired by nature. Through the process of long nature walking tours and entering an almost meditative state, the artist uses the old traditions of weaving in symbolic ways to create charged, energetic visualisations of general human experiences. By Ingrid Opstad | Photos: Ragnhild Monsen
The leading philosopher and influential thinker, Arthur Schopenhauer, wrote ‘... it is as though an invisible thread had run through my life…’. This metaphor of the invisible thread permeates much of the thinking of mankind through the ages, whether it is found in Japanese folklore, the work of Western thinkers and writers like Nietzsche and Melville, or ancient Chinese proverbs. All these speak of a common concept: threads 110 | Issue 130 | November 2019
are our clothes; invisible threads bind humanity and even connect the seemingly random experiences of our lives. The long established and respected textile artist from northern Norway, Ragnhild Monsen, takes this metaphor and materialises it by giving it form, embellishing it with colour and texture, while allowing us to touch and feel it as a tangible reality; expressing human
sub-conscious symbolisms in abstract forms that speak of a commonality of cultures and in an intellectually frustrating manner appeal to our deepest senses, usually without us consciously knowing why.
The weaving loom, present from early memories Born and raised in the northern town of Rognan in Saltdal, Monsen was an active and energetic, sporty person. This interest eventually led her to training as a gymnastics instructor. “I was always interested in being active, but I was also raised in a home where the weaving loom was present in the living room and my mother was very fond of weaving and knitting, so I was introduced