© Hilde Mæhlum / BONO. Photo: © Ivar Kvaal
Konkavt ansikt
- Date 2006
- Unveiled 2013
- Material Marble
- Dimensions 300 x 150 (x117) x 128 (x117) cm
«Form is a void, and the void is a form.»
Foto: © Ivar Kvaal
Hilde Mæhlum
(b. Telemark, Norway, 1945)
Hilde Mæhlum was born in Heddal in Telemark. She studied at National Academy of Art and Craft Industry (1965-68), and the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo (1968-71 and 1972-74), where she was tutored by, amongst others, the Norwegian ceramicist and scholar Jens von der Lippe and the Danish Norwegian artist and sculptor Per Palle Storm. Alongside many other collections, the National Museum has acquired her work. She has received several grants and is a leading protagonist on the Norwegian sculpture scene. Mæhlum has made a great number of public commissions. She continues to work in her studio at Frysja kunstnersenter in Oslo.
Konkavt ansikt (Concave Face) is an enormous marble stone with a face that bends inwards, hewn into the rock. The face follows the viewer, keeping eye contact while the viewer moves, and creates an optical illusion where we experience the face as convex, when it really is concave. In other words, we see something that isn’t there. The concave or negative face shape has fascinated Mæhlum for a long time, and for her the inwards facing form of the mask is a symbol of our secret inner lives. Mæhlum’s faces are not portraits. She aims to visualise a universal face and is interested in how humans communicate or fail to do so.
Mæhlum employs a variety of materials in her work, spanning from paper to metal to stone. Her works are naturalistic and simultaneously tend towards abstraction or stylisation. Her main theme is the human face and since 1975 she has made sculptures that depict faces turned inwards into the material. Masks are her starting point, as well as the negative shell that emerges in the casting process of a sculpture. Mæhlum has made several varieties and sizes of Konkavt ansikt. They exist in marble, as well as red and black granite. The version in our collection is the largest sculpture she has made yet.
In quoting Saint-Exupéry's book The Little Prince, curator and professor Maaretta Jaukkuri, who was one of the initial members of the art council in Ekebergparken, has expressed the essence of Mæhlum's art: “Goodbye”" said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye”.
Guided tours
Experience Konkavt ansikt and many of the other artworks in the collection with our art mediators. We offer guided tours for private groups all year around.