Eva Laila Hilsen Eva Laila Hilsen is a graduate of the National Academy of the Arts in Oslo. She is a member of Association of Norwegian Graphic Artists, The Association of Norwegian Painters, The Drawing Art Association of Norway and The Association of Norwegian Visual Artists. Eva Laila Hilsen made her debut in 1987 with the exhibition Under Way in Bod ø Arts Society. Since, there have been more than forty exhibitions of her work in private and public galleries, nationally and internationally. She has participated in a series of group exhibitions nationally and internationally, including Norwegian Paintings, Statens H østutstilling (National Autumn Exhibition), Øst- og Vestlandsutstillingen, Norge ( Eastern and Western Norway Exhibition) and Tr øndelag Exhibition. Graphic art Biennales and Triennials in Italy (IV International Small Engraving Exhibition, Cremona - Premio Leonardo Sciscia amateur d'estampes, Milano - Premio Internationale Biella Per Licisione, Biella.) Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Finland, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, Yugoslavia. In 2009 she took part in the 5th International Artist’s Book Triennial Vilnius, Lithuania . Her work has been exhibited at the Pleiades Gallery in New York, and she participated with an installation in a German garden project in Darmstadt “KlangARTen”. Lately she had a solo exhibition in South-Africa and Paris. See also enclosed CV. Her work has been bought by private collectors and public arts organisations in Norway, such as the Norwegian Cultural Council, Art in Schools, New-Norwegian Cultural Centre, as well as a series of local councils. She is represented in The National Museum of Cracow, the State Gallery of Fine Arts in Cairo, the University Gallery of Windhoek in Namibia, the Cremona Civic Museum, Italy, and the Engraving Museum of Douro, Portugal. She is the recipient of a series of scholarships, including Norway Graphic Artists, Hedmark and Opplands Artists Scholarship, the Harriet Backer’s Memorial Fund, and has also received travel grants to Paris, Berlin and Namibia. PRESENTATION Since 1991, the house has been a central motif in her works. She uses the house as a form and also as a metaphor for the human being and life in general. Her houses are sometimes upright, alone, strong and untouchable, or fragile and vulnerable. Sometimes they appear in small societies or clusters, either supported or disturbed by an intruding house, standing on its head or at an angle. Her colours are often complementary, sometimes with nuances in between, colours choices that reflect life itself. She gets her inspiration from colours and patterns of nature, from her home place, the blue valley of Valdres, and from journeys in Norway and abroad. She also uses the camera as a sketchbook and for final works, working with them on the computer in photo-shop. In nature she find inspiration for her works, and borrow from nature’s ornamentation and symmetry, disorder and chaos, trying to impart nature’s patterns and the light that filters in and out of the patterns created by branches, twigs and buds. She paints and prints a black and white element in her works, which, together with her tight frontal house forms, adds a softer and more organic expression to the works. Together with paintings, prints;- linocut/woodcuts and etchings in black and white as well as colourful lithography, she also works with drawings, mainly in pastel and charcoal. She also uses novels and poems as inspiration for her works. She has made one artist-book with woodcuts based on a poem of Sylvia Plath, the Mushrooms, and have created two artist-books/portfolios based on texts by the Norwegian dramatist Jon Fosse. The contents/prints of the portfolios, A Room-A House and Blue ( Eit Rom-Eit Hus and Blå) are presented in her website, www.evalailahilsen.no - on the front-page of here website, see previous homepage to see these two portfolios and also previous works. For more info: E valailahilsen.no