9. October - 1. November

Hjemstavn - Ørnulf Opdahl

The exhibition Hjemstavn brings together a selection of paintings that explore the inner geography of landscape, understood less as topography and more as a space of experience, memory and belonging.

Ørnulf Opdahl at Galleri Haaken

Set in the coastal region of Sunnmøre, a terrain to which Opdahl maintains a lifelong and sensuous connection, the works draw upon the shifting light and contours of a landscape imprinted on the artist through decades of lived experience and artistic inquiry. In these paintings, the monumental merges with the vulnerable, giving form to a geography as much emotional as it is physical.

By modulating light and shadow as formal devices, mountains and coastlines are rendered as visually resonant forms shaped by memory and atmosphere. As light and darkness shift between intensity and repose, fjords, ridgelines, and seascapes emerge as mental maps, readable as both inner and outer terrains. These paintings appear as stratified layers of time and recollection, where the movements of nature and the human gaze converge in a contemplative encounter. The title Hjemstavn, an archaic yet evocative word for home, points toward a landscape not merely seen, but recalled, and perhaps even relived. Here, the paintings form a liminal space in which the presence of the past and the enduring significance of place are made visible. Not as nostalgia, but as poetic insight.

Art & culture