By Japhet Alakam

Bente Vindvik is a Norwegian born painter. She had participated in many solo and group exhibitions in her country Norway and in Angola where she stayed for sometime before coming to Nigeria. And after spending over four years in Nigeria, Norwegian born painter is set to share her art with art lovers in and around Lagos, before she finally leaves in May with a solo art exhibition tagged A Nordic View of Nigeria, an exhibition of Drawings and painting.

The exhibition which can be seen as her parting gift is scheduled to open today, 5th of March and run to March, 14th at Quintessence Gallery, Parkview Estate main entrance, Gerard Road, Ikoyi and will feature her view about Nigeria in the last four years.

Different techniques

Bente Vindvik, who stated that her mission as an artist has always been to recreate what she see in her own very personal way actually reflected that in her latest exhibition where she will showcase about 16 works done in different techniques that depicts some of those things she has seen, experienced and felt about the country Nigeria.

•Bente Vindvik putting finishes touches on a work

With good use of colours, she paints out her emotions in most of the works. Some of the works include The Blue people, The Blue woman; The past; Independent; Blue Tulip; Small talk and others.

The artists who confessed that her more than 4 years stay in Nigeria and the experiences, had transformed in her head and become her own special, colourful birds, said that “in Nigeria, people dress in so many colours. That gives me inspiration that sometimes lead to nonfigurative images in my head. There is activity everywhere and that energy is also inspiring.

The colours and energy of Lagos gets transformed into images. Some may see only colours in my pictures. For it is so connected to what inspired me that I see both colour and images.”

Speaking about the piece, Small talks, which depicts two birds facing each other, preferably talking to each other, Bente said that the painting was what she recreated from the colourful birds that she sees from their building. “From my window I see out on the canopy of the remains of the forest that once covered our part of Ikoyi. I see colourful birds that inspire me to recreate them on canvass, but not like a photo.” Another piece, The Blue woman where she recreates a metaphoric view of the Nigerian women whom she describes as strong and believe in the future.

In his artistic statement, Bente said, “I am not a naturalist, even if I sometimes find inspiration in trying to recreate people and other living things as accurately as possible. Light fascinates me because in Norway we have a lot of light in summer with very long days.”

Continuing, she expressed her view about Africa too, saying that it is colour, the colour of people, their dresses and the colour of nature. My first contact with this magnificent continent was Angola where I stayed for three years and travelled a lot.

Everywhere you had the red, Ochre coloured sand and vegetation shifting from deep green to the greyness of semi-arid coastal areas. I had opportunity to work with local artists and to exhibit together with them on occasion. It gave me a lot of inspiration to be in that environment which is so different from my home country.”