Art in Havsteinekra Health and Welfare Wentre

Artists: Philipp Dommen: ‘Havsteiner’; Erika Hauffen: ‘Grønningen, du som vi alltid lengter tilbake til’; Sissel Stangenes 2007/2009. Art consultant: Anne-Tove Huse.

With his three large granite sculptures, Philipp Dommen has literally brought weighty art to the Havstein neighbourhood. The grey-white granite shines and glitters in the sun, and on the rough surface, with its traces of the sculpting process, varying patterns of shadowy images are visible. From close up, we discover another material is added to the top layer of the three sculptures. Elements made from Plexiglass have been adjusted and inserted to the stony ‘landscape’ that the artist has produced on the upper surface. Like in a bird’s eye view, we discover a rugged mountain landscape on the lowest stone, and glass lies like an ice cap on top of some of the mountain ridges. On the two other sculptures, the surface tops provide associations with water, waves and the ocean. The glass enhances the wavy movement of the carved and polished stone, and lies on the turbulent surface like foam on a breaking wave. The three stony objects light up in the darkness, making them even more striking. The many glass elements, glowing like light fixtures in the dark, form new visual impressions, on their own as well as in a shadowy interplay with the stone. In the entrance area of the nursing home, Erika Hauffen has created a distinctive transition between outdoors and indoors, using coloured windowpanes that form a whole image. Inside the building Sissel Stangenes’ contribution consists of a large wood relief placed on a corridor wall, where the theme can be seen as an image of the life of flowers, from swelling buds in the spring to the ready-to-burst seed capsule of autumn. Stangenes has also decorated several walls with graphics.