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Interview with Kenneth Alme

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January 12th, 2015 | Published in Blog, Interviews, Painting

English
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We interviewd Norvegian artist Kenneth Alme (b. 1981) who has recently presented his rst solo exhibition
in the UK at the Rod Barton gallery. Playing with materials and their functions, the artist establishes a
personal and phisical relation with the canvases which become traces and clues to decipher his language,
as in the recent Couch Grass series.

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Kenneth Alme, My Tarp Has Sprung a Leak, Installation view

I very much dislike the term uncoventional materials but I can hardly get past it when
talking about your paintings (especially the series My Tarp Has Sprung a Leak ), where you
apply oil, acrylics and other media on plastic drop sheets. Is that a result of a rather
conscious decision to overcome the limitations of a standard canvas painting or an
outcome of spontaneously experimenting with various materials?
In the case of the plastic paintings it was partially accidental and a result of time being spent in the studio.
The plastic was originally meant to keep the oor clean while I was working on the canvas paintings. So I
would cover the oor with big sheets of plastic, 53 m, and paint on the un-stretched canvas on top of the
plastic. After a while the plastic would have marks and lines on them left over from the paintings. And I
noticed that when I was folding them up they would be transparent, meaning that the layers would shine
through. So that is where the idea of stretching them on a wooden stretcher, in layers of four with a small
drawing sandwiched between the two outer layers, came from. But they are still quite close to my other
works I think, in the sense that they are dealing with a form of translucency and colour seeping through,
as well as the blue colour being repeated.
The scribbles and splashes of paint in your beautiful series of works on cotton canvas
give the impression that lingers somewhere between playful and, one would say, almost
agressive. Is the way you apply paint on canvas completely random and actionistic or are
you a devotee of a more order-driven work ethic, possibly even preliminary scetches?
The way I apply the paint is not random, but the way the paint reacts and behaves in certain forms can at
times be random. I always think and sketch a lot with where I put my marks and how the marks should
appear, but since I work with oil and water on unprimed and un-stretched cotton canvas the outcome is
not always that easy to control. Which is one of the reasons I work with these materials in the rst place.
They give room for progression. There is absolutely two sides to the works, one might say playful and
agressive, with a contrast in how the dierent marks are made, from conscious brush strokes to random
accidents, oil paint and water never really working together. Even though the process of making them is
intense and puts the canvas through a lot of tension and stress, the nal result is delicate and the surface
is totally at, with only the woven patterns from the canvas making a texture. The paint has seeped into
the canvas, making it at.

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Kenneth Alme, My Tarp Has Sprung a Leak, Installation view

Ive stumbled upon your interview when youre saying how work is not to be concieved in
the studio, but made there. You talk about working with the materials that the painting
consists of, stretching the canvas on and o etc. It seems that you give quite a lot of
importance to the manual aspects of the working process; therefore, what is your opinion
on now already completely integrated gure of an artist as a producer of ideas only, and
not actually physically realizing the artwork?
I really appreciate the manual labor that comes with my work and I enjoy being part of the creation of a
work from start till end. This is something that I have understood as important since before and during
my years at the academy, and something that I have brought with me into my practice. I do come from a
family of carpenters, my father and grandfather working with furniture, so it is something that has been a
part of my thinking since I was quite young. I nd the physical completion of the work just as interesting
and rewarding as coming up with the idea for the work, and I nd it hard to separate the two. I dont think
I could leave it to others to complete my works, or even stretch or prime my canvases because it is just as
an important part as every other aspect of the work. And its the fun part as well.
I also read that you tend to be very picky with the music you listen to when you work.
What music has been playing in your studio lately ?
Lately I have listened a lot to Sonic Youth, Television, Coil and Ulver. The rest of the time there has been
quite a lot of punk and hard core with some interference by Neil Young and Brian Eno as well. Music can
have a profound inuence on me, so in certain parts of my practise I am very picky. Especially when I
paint. It has to do with creating an atmosphere in the studio that will fuel my work and the working
process.

I ART. The Artist in Residence program.

Niki de Saint Phalle ed il potere delle

Nana

What is one museum that you can visit over and over and never get tired of it?
My favourite museum in Oslo is Norsk Teknisk Museum (Norwegian Technical Museum), a museum
dedicated to science, technology and medicine, there is a full size plane tted to the ceiling.

Kenneth Alme, My Tarp Has Sprung a Leak, Installation view

It s dicult to imagine any contemporary artist obsessively working with blue being able
to escape the (unintentional) references to Yves Klein in his or her work. Is your blue,
which is obviously light years away from Kleins, a colour you just nd most aesthetically
pleasing or is there a particular story behind it?
The blue colours that I use rst came to be when I started working on the Couch Grass series a couple of
years ago. I wanted to nd a colour that I could mix over and over with more or less the same result, only
with slight dierences. The blue that I ended up using is a mix of Ultramarine, Prussian blue, Ivory Black
and Titanium White. I never write down the ratio of the paints mixed from time to time, but rather mix
them as I remember them so it will not be the exact same blue as the last one. I also choose blue in
certain projects because it is the colour that most people connect with calm and peace. The idea was that
it would work well in a series of paintings that repeats the same shape over and over, the act of repetition
here referring to repetition and routine as a way to achieve control. At that time I was also working as a
technician at an art center in Oslo, that has an extensive collection of modern art. Amongst others they
have a painting by Willie Baumeister, ARU Dark Blue (1955), the work contained an abstract blue shape on
a grey/white background, with the blue shape hovering over a thin line of ocher. I would see this painting
every day for a while, and Im sure that my fascination for the colour blue in parts comes from this
painting and the daily exposure to it.

Kenneth Alme, My Tarp Has Sprung a Leak, Installation view

La catalogazione delluniverso secondo

Camille Henrot
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Recently theres been a lot of talk about the allegedly regained visibility of the non
gurative painting. I dont believe in abstraction as a reccuring trend of some sort, but it s
undeniable that it has in part gained a new level of exposure (Im not sure about
popularity) thanks to the likes of Ostrowski, Lucien Smith and Oscar Murillo. Where do
you see yourself amidst this new-found popularity of the abstraction? Do you even
consider your work abstract?
I accept my paintings being regarded as abstract, and in many ways I guess they are, but it is not really
important to me if they are labeled as such or not. I dont consider myself an abstract painter. The Couch
Grass paintings for instance are basically a simplied drawing of a straw of grass, not an abstract drawing
of a straw of grass. I think most paintings in general inherit abstract qualities as much as they have
conceptual or gurative qualities. What I nd interesting with my paintings is where they react with
objects and sculptures, and, since they are so empty and at, I do see them as having sculptural

qualities in themselves. I think it has to do with the way I work, with all this unstretched canvas piled on
top of each other on the oor. It makes me always take into consideration the room, the space, they are
made in and will be presented in.

Kenneth Alme, My Tarp Has Sprung a Leak, Installation view

What are some people outside the art world that you admire and feel inspired by ?
David Attenborough, I grew up watching him on television and probably learned more from him regarding
nature than all my years at school. His head-on approach to teaching is amazing. He has a sincere wish to
tell you just how fantastic this one creature or plant or fungus is, and how magnicently important it is to
the bigger picture. I often have his documentaries running in my studio while I am working. I can also
mention Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth and the Belgian cartoonist Franquin.
Laura Palmer is mentioned in the press release of your solo show at Rod Barton, London.
To end this, are you excited about Twin Peaks coming back to TV in 2016?
I have, intentionally, kept away from reading anything about Twin Peaks coming back to televison. I am a
big fan of the original series, so Im a little sceptical to how it will be. Although I am curious to see if they
manage to recreate the mood that the original series had. But, nevertheless, Im very exited.
Sebastjan Brank

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