The exhibition demonstrates how Baird's art evolves through repetitions and variations of the same themes, but also how they are influenced by private and political events. In her early works on gigantic canvases, we see Baird representing herself as young, thoughtful and yearning. Many of the images refer to male artistic geniuses – from Rodin to Munch – highlighting the underlying feminist perspective of the exhibition. Baird has often created her art over the past two decades at the ‘kitchen table’, surrounded by the chaos of everyday life amid children and an aging mother, but always with a sidelong glance at the world outside. She deals with the refugee crisis and the war in Ukraine in several of her more recent watercolours, in which the artist herself often stands powerless among the horrors.
The exhibition alludes to the repetitive nature of our lives, as well as the way significant events from one day to another can completely change our daily existence.
Image above: Vanessa Baird, Sommeren kom etter tyve år (Summer came after 20 years), 2005, pastel on paper, 540 x 865 cm. Photo: Jørn Hagen/ Lillehammer Kunstmuseum
