OFLUXO

Kenneth Almes recent project is an ongoing series of works existing under the title Gapahuk. Archaic and minimal in style, the works has its foundation in painting and linen canvas but mover further on to drawings, stitching and printing on various materials such as cardboard, envelopes and plywood.
The works are based on a very specific technique of painting that Alme has worked on for several years. Here the canvases are “primed” and soaked in water while lying flat on the floor after which they are overpainted with oil paint. Water and oil have very different qualities and will push each other away, resulting in a certain distortion where parts of the oil paint will be washed out and seep deeper into the canvas.
Gapahuk is Norwegian for a lean-to, or adirondack, a crude shelter made out of various materials, both natural and man-made, to stay dry and safe when in the wild. Gapahuks can be made to be permanent constructions for planned camping or they can be installations made in a hurry when they are suddenly and abruptly needed. With these works Alme tries to look at different aspects of the gapahuk and other forms of primitive shelter; as an installation, its formal qualities, as an idea of shelter, historical importance and further into its more mythical realm.

Kenneth Alme is an artist based in Oslo, Norway. He is also the founder of the nomadic project space Altan.