Reception: Saturday, September 7, 4-7 PM
Trygve Faste's work emerges from a response to current forces of consumer culture, architecture and technology. Faste uses the language of abstraction to explore issues bound to these forces, which shape our physical and psychological environment. The three-dimensional paintings, rendered with a slick palette and shaped into perfect geometry, suggest a kinship with mass produced, high-tech products. Yet, the intimately painted, laboriously shaped stretchers belie the concept of impersonal, mass-production, and instead celebrate a unique interface between industry, fine art and technology.
While the influence of product design shapes his very specific aesthetic, the paintings are firmly planted in the spatial and physical motivations of abstraction and sculpture. Faste seamlessly melds these two seemingly discordant impulses into his works. He pushes this unique dynamic further by combining current technology, such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) and laser cutters, with traditional painting techniques, to create his works.
“My work investigates the aesthetics of desire in designed objects through abstract dimensional paintings,” states Faste. “Consumer culture, of which both art and design are integral, necessitates innovation, creativity, style, seduction and manipulation to propagate itself. My work engages conceptual issues of material creation through an abstract visual language of implied technology and function....I use these paintings as a means to explore issues around object creation, and as such the physicality of the work is important.
Faste’s work has been exhibited nationally and is in the permanent collections of The Cranbrook Art Museum, Compuware Inc. and Chrysler. Trygve Faste lives and works in Eugene, Oregon. He received an MFA in painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in 2004, and a BA in Mathematics-Computer Science and Studio Art from Whitman College in 1997. He was just awarded an Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant for his upcoming shows in 2013.
For additional information visit the Ruth Bachofner Gallery website.