The Norwegian contemporary artist Ann Cathrin November Høibo has gathered international attention for her sculptures and paintings utilizing weaving, fabric, dangling string and cords, rubber bands, various found objects and spare, intense color.
Ann Cathrin’s tapestries form a part of a lineage of Norwegian textile art that stretches back through her mentor, Else Marie Jakobseb, in turn a pupil of Hannah Ryggen, to Frida Hansen, who established the Workshop for National Tapestry Weaving in 1892.
The ravishing work of November Høibo from Kristiansand has caught the attention of art galleries around the world. Her characteristic treatment of gallery- and museums spaces, in which she arranges exhibitions of temporary situations from singular elements that interact in different ways is certainly one of the reasons.
Although her background is in weaving, she is by no means a textile artist per se. She often combines natural and synthetic materials, wool fashioned on a loom and commercial products, hinting at an abstract painting sans paint, while also suggesting landforms seen from above. Working both with and against associated traditions, her works are thus typically finished at a moment before they are complete.
Using the gallery room as her studio, she assembles half-finished works with new whims and acquisitions.
Her work ranges from installation-based, site-specific pieces comprised of mixed media and found objects to large-scale abstract canvases incorporating materials like acrylic paint, acid and salt.
Høibo’s straightforward works disclose exactly what was accomplished, and with what materials, while they reference or incorporate commonplace domestic objects. Working in such an improvised way, she often ignores any regular sequence of warp and weft and leaves threads trailing or casually bundled up.
She is indeed demonstrating that textiles are a legitimate artistic medium for voicing her concerns regarding self or society. Her works have a remarkable air of mystery, wonderment and transformation. She rejects a homespun aesthetic: natural threads are counterpoised by shiny nylons and other oil-derived, highly durable looking polyesters.
Høibo’s site specific installations consist predominantly of threads and textiles in various conditions, weaved, draped, laddered, bundled and seducing.
Ann Cathrin November Høibo was trained at the National Academy of Arts, Oslo, and Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main. She lives and works in Oslo. She has already participated in group shows at Rodeo in Istanbul, White Columns in New York and Standard (Oslo) Henie Onstad art Center (Oslo), as well as a solo presentation at Art Basel in Miami Beach.
Refreshingly Eccentric Young Norwegian Artist, written by Tor Kjolberg