02.10.2025 - 31.10.2025
Kai Solbakken
Kai Solbakken (b. 1995, Lillehammer) is a Norwegian visual artist living in Bergen.
He works mainly with painting and drawing, in addition to photography. The starting point for the paintings is often a drawn composition based on one or more reference photos, which gradually changes form and expression as it is painted over. Forests, nature and scenes from life outside the city are typical inspirations for his pictures.
Kai was on residency with us in October 2025. During this period, Kai worked on a series of paintings inspired by the landscape in Sokndal and around Sandbekk. Kai himself writes about his time with Velferden :
“I initially wanted to get up close to the mining industry in the area and its history, but this changed a bit after arriving. Velferden itself is in the middle of this, given its location, but I ended up looking at the surrounding nature and the village itself. The old industrial area around Velferden also bears evidence of the basis for the industry, for example in the build-up of iron oxide in some streams and bodies of water, as well as blocked openings in the rock.
The fact that work has been going on in the mountains here for so long is exciting in itself, but I also had to find an angle that suited my own work and the pace of it. I ended up taking a few steps back, and worked mostly with the immediate surroundings around the studio building at Sandbekk. I produced a number of sketches and some paintings in progress, which are mostly based on sections of photos I took in the area. The idea is to gradually expand the horizon and enter the place as a whole, a kind of step-by-step exploration that is expressed through painting. Since I mostly use my own reference material as a starting point in my practice, I see the work as something locally rooted. Coming to a completely unknown place and working site-specifically in foreign surroundings has been a rewarding experience."
Photo 1 © Hanna Biørnstad
Photo 2 - 6 © Kai Solbakken