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What you are, be fully, not in parts and pieces.!
Brand
To think it, wish it, even want it — but do it!
No, that I cannot understand.
Peer Gynt
I believe that first and foremost I am an individual,
just as you are.
A Doll’s house
To live is to war with trolls.
HENRIK IBSEN
All information is supplied with permission from Ibsen.net,
the official Henrik Ibsen internet site.
I am Hanging Here to Listen
(after Henrik Ibsen)
Mixed media, 230cm x 90cm x 50cm
The Storyteller
(after Henrik Ibsen)
Acrylic on canvas, 125cm x 125cm
Henrik Ibsen (1828 - 1906)
Henrik Ibsen was born in Norway in 1828.
Henrik Ibsen is one of the very greatest names in world literature.
He was a central figure in the modern break-through in the intellectual life of
Europe, and is considered the father of modern drama.
Ibsen wrote in all 26 dramatic works and published one collection of poetry.
His plays are still highly topical, and continue to be staged in all parts of the
world.
It is said that Ibsen is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world
after Shakespeare.
“So you knit?”
(after Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House)
Reconstructed stone and mixed media, 40cm x 60cm
“Do you know you ought to embroider?”
(after Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House)
Neon sign, 30cm x 60cm
A Doll’s House - 1878
Summary
Nora Helmer is apparently happily married to Torvald, a lawyer who is about to take over the post of director of the Joint Stock
Bank. They have three small children. Nora has a secret to keep, however. Early in their marriage Torvald became seriously ill, and
the doctors advised a stay in a more southerly climate. Nora had to get hold of the money for the journey in secrecy and so
borrowed it from Krogstad, a lawyer who had been a fellow-student of Torvald`s. As security for the loan she forged her dying
father`s signature. Ever since then she has saved some of the housekeeping money in order to pay back the loan with interest, and
she has taken on small jobs to earn some money herself. When the play opens, an old friend of Nora`s, Mrs. Linde, has arrived in
town to look for work, and Nora sees to it that Torvald gives her a post at the bank. But this means that Krogstad is dismissed from
his post at the bank, and in desperation he goes to Nora and threatens to tell Torvald about the loan and the forgery unless he is
allowed to keep his post. Nora is in despair but at the same time convinced that in his love for her, Torvald will sacrifice himself and
take full responsibility for what she has done, if he learns the truth. Nora considers asking Dr. Rank, an old friend of the family, for the
money, but when he declares his love for her, she finds it impossible to ask him. Torvald finds out what has happened, and reacts
with rage and revulsion, without any sign of being willing to accept responsibility for the forgery. Mrs. Linde, who was in love with
Krogstad in the past, gets him to change his mind and withdraw his threats. But Nora has begun to understand that her marriage is
not what she thought it was, and in the course of a dramatic conversation with Torvald she decides that her most important and
only task is to go out into the world on her own to "bring herself up", and she leaves her husband and childr
Source: The Oxford Ibsen, Volume VII, Oxford University Press 1966, Merete Morken Andersen, Ibsenhåndboken, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1995
“Mother, give me the sun”
(Retinal trace after Henrik Ibsen’s Ghost)
Acrylic on canvas, 125cm x 125cm
Ghost - 1881
Summary
Mrs. Helene Alving is the widow of Captain Alving, late Court Chamberlain, of Rosenvold – a man of high esteem in the community.
The marriage was an unhappy one for Mrs. Alving, but she did everything in her power to conceal the fact that her husband was an
alcoholic who lived a depraved life at the manor. Alving had a daughter, Regine, by a servant at the house, and a son, Osvald, by his
wife. Regine is now Mrs. Alving's servant, while Osvald was sent abroad as a child to protect him from his home surroundings. Regine
thinks she is the daughter of Engstrand, a carpenter who is now finishing work on a children's home to be opened the next day in
memory of Captain Alving. After this Engstrand wants to take Regine to the neighbouring town to help him start a public house for
sailors. Regine and Mrs. Alving are both opposed to this. Regine imagines being able to go to Paris with Osvald, a painter who has
come home from Paris in order to be present at the opening of the children's home. Manders, a clergyman in charge of the financing
of the home, has also come for the opening. When young, Mrs. Alving was in love with Manders and wanted to leave her husband
for him, but Manders rejected her and sent her home. The night before the ceremony the home in memory of Captain Alving burns
down. Manders has insisted that the home should not be insured, and now he is afraid for his reputation as a clergyman and financial
manager. He comes to a secret agreement with Engstrand, by which the latter takes the blame for the fire and in return funds for
running the home are to be invested in Engstrand's projected "sailors' home" in the town.
Osvald tells his mother that he is suffering from syphilis, which he thinks he has contracted as a result of his bohemian life in Paris. He
is afraid of becoming a helpless invalid, and hopes that Regine will be willing to help him to take an over-dose of morphine in the last
stage of his illness. But when Regine realizes that he is ill, and in fact is her step-brother, she leaves Rosenlund to make her own way
in the town. Mrs. Alving tells Osvald of his father's true nature, and that he has inherited the disease from his father. It is now up to
her to decide whether she is willing to help her son by giving him the over-dose of morphine. The play ends as the sun rises and
Osvald has succumbed to the last stage of his illness.
Source: The Oxford Ibsen, Volume VII, Oxford University Press 1966, Merete Morken Andersen, Ibsenhåndboken, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1995
“Lady from the Sea”
(after Henrik Ibsen’s Lady from the Sea)
Mixed media, 220cm x 240cm x 50cm
The Lady from the Sea - 1888
Summary
Doctor Wangel is a doctor in a small town on the west coast of Norway. He has two daughters by his first marriage, Bolette and
Hilde. After the death of his first wife, he married Ellida, who is much younger than he is. She is the daughter of a lighthouse-keeper,
and has grown up where the fjord meets the open sea. Ellida and Wangel had a son who died as a baby. This put an end to their
marital relations, and Doctor Wangel fears for his wife's mental health. He has written to Bolette's former tutor, Arnholm, and
invited him to come and visit them, in the hope that this will be beneficial to Ellida. But Arnholm misunderstands, thinking Bolette is
waiting for him, and proposes to her. Reluctantly, Bolette agrees to marry her former teacher, seeing it as her only possibility of
getting out into the world.
Ten years earlier Ellida had been engaged to a seaman. After murdering a captain he had to escape, but asked her to wait for him to
come back and fetch her. She tried in vain to break the engagement. This stranger has great, compelling power over her, and when
he returns after all these years to take her away with him, Dr. Wangel realizes that he must give Ellida the freedom to choose
between staying with him or going away with the stranger. She chooses to stay with her husband, and the play ends with the
stranger leaving, while Ellida and Dr. Wangel take up their life together again.
Source: The Oxford Ibsen, Volume VII, Oxford University Press 1966, Merete Morken Andersen, Ibsenhåndboken, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1995
“It takes the strength out of you, the luring game.”
(after Henrik Ibsen’s Little Eyolf)
Mixed media, 220cm x 240cm x 50cm
Lille Eyolf - 1894
Summary
The play takes place in the course of a day and a half at the home of Rita and Alfred Allmers, near the fjord and some distance from
the nearest town. They have a partly paralyzed son of nine, Eyolf. The boy's handicap is the result of a fall in babyhood, when he fell
off a table after being left unattended while his parents were totally absorbed in making love. After this accident Alfred Allmers
seems to have withdrawn from Rita both sexually and emotionally, and buried himself in his work on "human responsibility", which
he considers his vocation and the great work of his life. Rita feels rejected by her husband, and this results in outbursts of violent
jealousy of both her son and Alfred's stepsister Asta, to whom he is strongly attached. The plot develops after Alfred's return from
the mountains, where he has decided to give up his work on the treatise, and devote himself entirely to Eyolf's happiness and
progress. An old woman, known as "the Rat-woman", arrives at the house and asks whether there is anything "gnawing" there. She
offers to lure the rats with her to the fjord so that they drown, but no-one in the house thinks there is anything gnawing there and
needing to be disposed of. But little Eyolf is fascinated by the sinister Rat-woman and follows her down to the water, where he
drowns. The boy's death triggers off crises among those who are left behind. We realize that Alfred is in love with Asta, who in turn
has discovered from some old letters left by her mother that Alfred and she are not related at all. She leaves with Borgheim, an
engineer who wants to marry her.
After heart-searchings, Rita and Alfred decide to stay together in spite of everything, and to start a new life devoted to caring for the
poor children of the district. A social conscience will emerge from their feelings of guilt, their sorrow and the void left by the loss of
Eyolf.
Source: The Oxford Ibsen, Volume VII, Oxford University Press 1966, Merete Morken Andersen, Ibsenhåndboken, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1995
“One never can tell what is going too happened”
(after Henrik Ibsen’s Per Gynt)
Mixed media, 300cm x 170cm x 110cm
Summary
Peer Gynt is the son of the once rich and highly regarded Jon Gynt, who had become a drunkard and lost all his money, leaving Peer
and his mother Åse to live in poverty. Peer wants to restore what his father had wrecked, but gets lost in boasting and day-dreams.
He is involved in a fight and carries off the bride, Ingrid of Hægstad, on her wedding-day. He is outlaned and has to flee from the
parish. During his flight he meets three amorous dairy-maids, the woman clad in green, the daughter of the old man of the Dovre
mountains, whom he wants to marry, and Bøygen (the great obstacle).
Solveig, whom Peer met at the Hægstad wedding, and fell in love with, comes to his cabin in the forest to live with him, but he
leaves her and goes on his travels. He is away for many years, takes part in various occupations and plays various roles including that
of a businessman engaged in shady enterprises on the coast of Morocco, wanders through the desert, passes the Memnon and the
Sphinx, becomes a Bedouin chief and a prophet, tries to seduce Anitra, daughter of a Bedouin, and ends up as a guest in the
madhouse in Cairo, where he is hailed as emperor. When at last on his way home as an old man, he is shipwrecked. Among those
on board he has met the Strange Passenger, who wants to make use of his corpse to find out where dreams have their seat.
Back home in the parish, he attends a peasant funeral and an auction where he offers for sale everything from his earlier life. He also
meets the Button-moulder, who maintains that Peer's soul must be melted down with other faulty goods unless he can explain when
and where in life he has been "himself", and the Lean one, who believes he cannot be accounted a real sinner who can be sent to
hell.
Peer, in ever greater despair, reaches Solveig, who has been waiting for him in the cabin ever since he left. She tells him that he has
always been himself in her belief, hope and love.
Source: Merete Morken Andersen, Ibsenhåndboken, Gyldendal Norsk Forlag