All that was left was a Yellow Duck
// 2022//
//Obscure Sphere” refers to
the landscape where all my ideas wander.
I wander,…
both in mental and physical vast landscapes...
where it is only me and my creative thoughts.
It’s a lonely but beautiful journey. //
Ole Marius Joergensen
[b. 1976]
is an artist, with a background in film, based in rural Asker, just outside of Oslo.
Ole Marius Joergensen
[1976]
Ole Marius Joergensen [b.1976] is a fine art photographer based in the small town of Asker, just outside of Oslo. As a rural Norwegian child of the 1980s, he became fascinated with Steven Spielberg and Stephen Kings views of suburban America and was inspired to create his own narratives about an imaginary place where the individual takes center stage. Using humor and elements of surrealism, Joergensen presents narratives that allow the viewer to create their own endings, as they observe the daily activities of people within nature. Like a filmmaker, he presents scenes meant to be seen together, as a story slowly unfolds.
Through his work, Joergensen examines the changes happening in rural Norway where the land, and the quiet way of living, is slowly fading due to modernization. Like Hopper, he presents ordinary situations infused with a unique narrative that unlocks an unexpected reality that feels both nostalgic yet contemporary. Through carefully staged cinematic photographs, produced in-camera, his muted palette reflects the contemplation found in the country, where traffic and noise is replaced by calm and introspection.
This can be seen in “Vignettes of a Salesman, 2016-18” where he creates an affectionate portrait of a salesman traveling through the country lost in thought. The photographs depict the isolation often experienced moments before or after a business transaction, setting up a storyline that is filled with suspense. Like Arthur Miller’s character Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Joergensen examines the dreams and aspirations of the traveling salesman within the vast Norwegian landscape.
In his last series “All that was Left was a Yellow Duck,” Joergensen references the Norwegian painter Hans Gude, whose depictions of the landscape and its people reflect the realities of rural life. 150 years later, Joergensen wanders the same winding roads and landscapes. It is this silence that the artist examines, as the simple and peaceful rural world is fading in favor of today’s complex societies that is concerned with instant gratification.
Joergensen studied Film Studies at The Southampton Solent University and graduated from Norwegian Fotofagskole in Trondheim. He is dedicated to his work and finds solitude in working alone in the vast landscapes, as a meditative producer. Since his debut in 2006, he has had several solo exhibitions in Norway, Europe,Asia and the USA.
Joergensen’s work can be found in private and public collections in Oslo, Stockholm, London, Madrid, Berlin, Hong Kong and the US.
