Underdog Painting

Merete Loendal was born in Notodden, Norway 1971, and establishing her own studio in 2007 in the Norwegian Hydro's old industrial premises. Loendal is working with tempera on canvas. Her work is characterized by a thick foundation, made up of layer upon layer of paint. The paintings are figurative but the subjects are fragmented and distorted. Sometimes the subject is reduced or even erased as different levels are mixed together. There are often several surfaces that conjoin, dissolve or blend into each other like reflections in a window. The current work consists of motifs following the wake of the financial crisis. Reflecting the current state, stretching from Scandinavia in the start of the financial crisis, and through to Europe, before finally ending up in New York Some of the works have already been shown at exhibitions in New York, Italy, and at the Oslo Stock Exchange in Norway and describes the western crisis in a global perspective. The series is called, "En passant" - from financial crisis to "new-barock" "I am now working on expanding the series, "En passant" by taking a closer look at different economic structures around the world. I paint reflections in windows. These window-reflections have the dual ability of showing us what is on offer behind the shop windows and at the same time reflecting our own mirror image at a candid moment in time, desiring the products on display, or just in the passing. There are so many stories and destinies to be told, and they are all unique. My goal is to reflect what I see onto a canvas and leave the interpretation of the work up to the viewer. The paintings contain no political points of view, but have instead the sole purpose of being documentary and suggestive in nature. The artist of today is yesterdays` storyteller. I want to document the contrasts in the economic policies governing the western countries, and now I document Cuba`s first steps on a path leading to a new era. The paintings tells a story about our different systems and environments, bound together by one common factor: The people behind the numbers. "