Liv Dessen seeks balance in her painting.These are abstract colour compositions that rarely point to anything beyond themselves. She engages in dialogue with the surface, improvising an initial layer of paint, which she then responds to in consecutive layers. It's like improvised music, where individual musicians and instruments respond in turn, but here Dessen plays all the instruments herself, and the instruments are her brushes and tubes of paint. Each composition appears as an ongoing conversation, where the brush is both speaker and listener, and where the viewer is invited to follow their eye from one part of the surface to another, without the gaze stopping or fixating on any single detail.

For many years, Liv Dessen focused on drawing as a medium, but in the last decade, she has returned to painting. And from drawing, Liv Dessen has brought with her a painterly translation of charcoal; black expressive lines that help create rhythm in the composition.

Liv Dessen highlights the Vossa School as particularly important for her development as an artist, where she participated several times in the 1970’s. Vossaskulen for biletkunst was a summer school for artists, started in 1964 by painter Waldemar Stabell together with English artists Victor Pasmore and Michael Rothenstein. Many established British artists came to the Vossa School as teachers. Ian Stephenson, in particular, inspired Dessen to experiment with abstract expression, while Michael Rothenstein gave her the confidence to pursue a career as an artist.

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Liv Dessen (b. 1935 in Løten) works in an abstract visual language with painting, drawing, gouache, and collage. She received education at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, USA (1970-71), attended the Vossa School of Visual Arts multiple times between 1970-80, and has been a private student of several painters.

Dessen had her debut exhibition at LNM in 1980, and has had solo exhibitions at, among others, the Nordnorsk kunstnersenter, Svolvær (2018), Trafo Kunsthall (2013), Tegnerforbundet (1994, 1999, 2006 & 2016) and kunstforeninger in Oslo, Hamar, Skien, Porsgrunn, Sandefjord, Holmestrand, Bærum, Asker, Hol and Gol. She has also participated several times in the Statens Kunstutstilling Høstutstillingen, and regional exhibitions such as Sørlandsutstillingen and Østlandsutstillingen. Other group exhibitions include the Norwegian Drawing Triennial (2019), the National Gallery's anniversary exhibition "New Norwegian Drawing" (2002) and the "Salon d'Automne" Grand Palais in Paris (1983). Works by Dessen have been purchased by the National Museum, the British Museum, Telemark and Hedmark County Councils, and the municipalities of Løten, Gol, Hol, Sandefjord and Bergen.

Liv Dessen lives and works in Oslo.

Click to download the pdf presentation of Liv Dessen's exhibition.