helium

Mette Vangsgaard's exhibition "helium" can be seen at Odsherred's Art Museum until 20 October 2024

Mette Vangsgaard creates works of art in a wide range of materials. For this exhibition, she works with ceramics and glass, among other things - and she has also produced stop-motion films.

The themes of the exhibition are rural life and the instability and uncertainty that characterize the changing times we live in. The motifs are the plant life of childhood. Everyday scenes. Wildlife and plants that are site-specific for Odsherred and Vestsjælland.

The exhibition title "helium" refers both to helium as an element and Helios, which means sun. Which again refers to the Sun Chariot, which was found in Odsherred.

Mette Vangsgaard herself writes about the exhibition project:

"The core of my artistic practice is the life of modern man and his relationship with nature. I grew up in the middle of Zealand's nature and my childhood has influenced my work. I therefore feel a natural kinship with the Odsherred painters.

For the exhibition at Odsherred Kunstmuseum, I will work with how demographics and nature have changed in rural areas, and how official narratives can help shape an area. I am interested in the rural population and I try to understand how forced changes affect people, especially the young. How nature and man continue to be inextricably linked even in an eternal change. Flowers and plants have been depicted as long as there has been art. Artists have always had an interest in depicting flora that played an important role in society. The ways in which flora are represented are historically determined. We have now reached a point in history where wherever you look in nature there are traces of people: A piece of plastic, a coffee lid, a bag…”

Click on play and watch a video presentation of the exhibition with art and communication manager Britta Tøndborg: