FOLDED CONSTRUCTIONS
Astrid Sleire (NO)
8 January to 14 February 2026
The exhibition is opened at 16.00 by the Norwegian ambassador to Denmark, Tone Allers, followed by an introduction to the exhibition by editor and writer Charlotte Jul (MA).
Artist talk by Astrid Sleire and Jorunn Veiteberg on Saturday, 10 January, at 13.00
Astrid Sleire is a significant figure in Norwegian ceramics, known for abstract pieces that combine construction and fragility. Her works emerge at the intersection of form and near collapse as fragments of architecture or landscapes in transformation. Working in her studio in Bergen, she pursues an explorative and material-conscious approach that lends her ceramic universe a characteristic intensity. Sleire’s practice revolves around experimentation, a movement in material and form towards a precarious position and a balancing act, where the construction plays a supporting role while also making an immediate statement.
Astrid Sleire’s works highlight the constructed and assembled – architectural qualities. In the exhibition Folded Constructions, she explores the movements of the material and how the shape can create a space for new possibilities. She aims to strike a balance between construction and expression, between the structural and the immediate.
The clay is rolled out into thin sheets and then folded and joined together into zigzag-like structures. Based on the natural colour of the clay, Sleire constructs colour shades through layers of underglaze. Colour patches and stripes move across the object, forming in a pattern that may both reveal and conceal, highlight and camouflage.
Sleire’s works balance at the tipping point between stable and unsettled – between clarity and visual disruptions that invite new interpretations.
Astrid Sleire (b.1961) graduated from the The National College of Art and Design in Bergen in 1988. Sleire has presented pieces in invited and juried exhibitions in Norway and abroad. Her art has been purchased for a number of collections and museums, among them the City of Oslo Art Collection, the National Museum in Oslo, KODE Bergen, Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum and Keramikmuseum Westerwald in Germany. She has carried out several commissions for art in the public space and is the recipient of the 2022 Finn Erik Alsos Memorial Award.
Selected exhibitions: SKOG Art Space, Oslo (with Karin Blomgren); Brev til lyset, 2024, Østfold kunstsenter, Fredrikstad; Opphold, 2023, FORMAT, Oslo; Falle til føye, 2023, Kunstgarasjen, Bergen; Bakkekontakt, 2021, RAM gallery, Oslo; Fortune Tellers, 2022/2023, curated by Randi Grov Berger, Kunsthall Grenland, Porsgrunn.
https://www.astridsleire.no/
The exhibition has received support from Norwegian Crafts, Norwegian Association for Craft Artists, the City of Bergen and the Norwegian Embassy in Copenhagen.
