About “Årstidene” / “The Seasons”

The series of prints named “Årstidene/The Seasons» are made as direct handprinted from plants, referred to as Nature Printing, and as a printmaking technique they are like monotypes, where only 1 of each copy has been printed. There may still be several versions of the same plant species, but all prints are unique as each plant is only printed once. The series consists of about 25 – 30 prints from different sort of wild plants and flowers from the area around Bergen. Framed in oak wooden list in various formats from 24 x 30 cm and up to 50 x 60 cm.

The expression and method is a direct inspiration from old printing methods from the middle of the 18th century. Well known from illustrations of botanical works in times when natural scientists travelled around the world to collect what they came across from nature’s occurrences to systematize and categorize. Transferred to our time is this a reminder of the diversity of nature and its presence in our surroundings. «Årstidene/The Season» draws attention to common wild flowers and plants, and emphasizes the «beautiful and fragile» – the authentic, which includes curly and worn leaves with random remnants of soil, grass and roots, – something that gives the impression of the immediate and natural. In some of the prints you may even see rests of the plant still left on the surface. The work is intended as a personal documentation, through observations of local plants from everyday life and our local environment.

All prints are signed by the artist at the back side of the print. A decision made to keep the image as clean as possible

Printed by hand in the artist studio of Elisabeth Rydland Nilssen.

contact: elisabeth.n.rydland@gmail.com