Stavanger, Norway
A better naturalist than me would be able to more precisely identify all of the insects, waterfowl, birds, rodents, and foliage that so densely populate the woodcuts of Elin Gabrielsen. But no matter, it does not take a learned ecologist to appreciate the wondrousness Gabrielsen captures in pictures that teem all over with life and death, regular and random patterns, scales ranging from the invisibly small to the planetarily large. As it is in her artwork, so it is in nature. Likewise, Gabrielsen has innovated a means of structuring her compositions that is itself uncannily natural: each woodcut can be printed on its own and appreciated as such, or it can be printed alongside others on a long piece of paper, one image flowing seamlessly into another, creating a broad, lush landscape. She calls these panoramas “In Perpetuum,” and so long as she carefully matches edge to edge, they can go on infinitely, like life itself.
—Lori Waxman, March 17, 1:10 PM