Artist Statement:
Always Somebody Moving.
My imagery is the visual terminus of a much longer method, and perhaps its extra-visual meaning is to be found in the archeology of its making. Driven by a desire to first experience as manifest reality the symbolic content, my process starts with performances where my models and I make pitiful attempts at acrobatic exercises. It is important that this initial physical experience—ripe with potential for injuries and skin-against-skin contact—lives on in the final pieces, as I strive to convey a bodily awareness of the paradox of strength and vulnerability that is the human condition.
Biography:
Born in Norway, Sol Kjøk left her tiny mountain village at 16 years of age. She went on to live and learn in Paris, Vienna, Medellín (Colombia), and a number of U.S. cities, earning three graduate degrees on her way. Virtually self-taught in artistic techniques, she moved to New York City for an MFA in Painting at Parsons School of Design, and has since then lived and worked at The Mothership, an artists’ collective she founded in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
An avid drawer all her life, Sol participated in her first professional exhibition as a teenager. To date, her work has been featured in 100+ shows worldwide. She has had eight solo exhibits in museums, galleries and artist-run spaces in the US and Europe. At present, she is working on an international series of two-person show with Danish artist Peter Max-Jacobsen, the IN THE AIR project, which started at Gallery Oxholm in Copenhagen in May 2014.
Sol’s work is included in museums and other public collections in the US and Europe, incl. the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Nordic Museum of Drawing and the World Gallery of Drawings. She has participated in international artist residencies, taught at universities and art schools and lectured at museums and art centers. Her work is included in Drawing Essentials, a textbook widely used in BFA programs throughout the US. A recipient of numerous awards and artist’s grants, Sol’s work has been reviewed in many publications internationally.
In February 2011, Sol founded NOoSPHERE Arts, a nonprofit exhibition and performance venue on the LES in Manhattan, with the objective of giving international artist colleagues exposure on the important NYC art scene (www.no-sphere.org).
Links:
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://solkjok.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sol.kjok
Facebook Alt: https://www.facebook.com/MothershipNYC
