Liliane Blom Art Studio
Norwegian Nights
Installation
This series of environmental art pieces brings the vastness and beauty of the outdoors indoors.
Artist Statement
This series of environmental art pieces brings the vastness and beauty of the outdoors indoors. It brings the mountains, ocean and woods to the viewer in the urban areas. The pieces are meant to remind the viewers of the amazing world of which we are a part, by putting them in the middle of it. They are what she dubs “green art” - their purpose to remind the onlooker in a way that is neither preachy nor overbearing, but experiential and meditative, of the world we share and are the stewards of. It is also meant to stir in the viewer’s soul, a longing for these places and a desire to commune with nature.
The central part of this installation piece is a large panorama of the landscape at the foot of Gausta Toppen, in Telemark in Norway. It is close to where her father grew up in Rjukan and one of the most beautiful places she knows. She photographed it late in the evening last June after an attempted hike to its summit was interrupted by a passing storm. On the way back down a perfect rainbow appeared across the sky, a consolation price of large proportions. The panorama is made up of 23 photographs which she “stitched” together to form one large 360° image. Because it is made up of so many shots it can be enlarged to the size here depicted without loss of detail. She has been working on this project for the last 3 months; the actual
construction has been taking place over the last two weeks.
​
The panorama itself is printed on 8 panels each 7 feet high and 4 feet wide which will are arranged in a circle surrounded by a curtain of lights. Outermost hangs a ring of sheer fabric which diffuses the lights and creates an appearance of clouds. This wall of light, about 34 feet in circumference acts as a magnet, attracting the viewer to its glowing mystery. The onlooker will have to part the sheer curtains, pass through the wall of lights to enter the inner sanctum where they will be surrounded by
the mountains.
The viewer will not only have symbolically entered a sacred space but will have scaled the mountains to be contained within them. The wall of light which surrounds this temple of nature also represents Norway’s endless summer nights, the light that does not fade, the nights which dreams forgot. It is an artwork which appeals to many of the senses – the visual, through the images and the light, the tactile by the brushing aside of the fabric and the parting of the canvas, and also the auditory, as
sounds of mountain brooks, wind, music and poetry are played in a loop inside the circle. Attached to the bottom of the panorama panels will be small bells, which when moved by passing air currents, or by someone coming or leaving the circle, will chime like the bells of the sheep roaming the mountain meadows.
Liliane Blom envisions this as a part of an educational traveling art show, with different circles – depicting a mountain scene, a seaside scene, a forest and a desert scene for example. These could be put up in schools, particularly in urban underprivileged areas, where some children may never have had an outdoor experience, never have felt and been overwhelmed by the rugged beauty of our world. Having not experienced the solace nature can bring they do not have a stake in preserving it.
