Mother and daughter 2008

Curator: Odd Nerdrum's painting, "Mother and Daughter" created in 2008, is a striking, albeit somber, piece of portraiture. What strikes you first about this oil-on-canvas work? Editor: The materiality, without a doubt. The layers of paint give it this textured, almost ancient quality. It’s like looking at a fresco unearthed from some long-lost civilization, really weighing on the visual and tactile senses. Curator: I find it fascinating how Nerdrum, within his self-proclaimed “kitsch” aesthetic, grapples with universal themes through figures rendered with such raw emotion. The figures feel displaced, perhaps representing the alienation within modern family structures. It feels relevant given its time, a sort of social commentary. Editor: Social commentary through the very *stuff* he's using. Oil paint, historically a medium of wealth and power, here it’s worked almost brutally to depict figures who seem anything but privileged. The making betrays the material. Curator: Absolutely. Nerdrum’s technique, his conscious decision to embrace a style outside the mainstream contemporary art discourse, can be read as a resistance to dominant art-world narratives. This, intertwined with how he chooses to represent these subjects, offers an implicit criticism of societal ideals surrounding family and beauty. The figures are not idealized, their expressions are melancholic; this diverges from the often sanitized version of motherhood. Editor: I keep returning to the way he’s handled the paint – the viscosity, the layering. Look at how the dark, earthy tones dominate. There's an almost visceral connection to the earth, suggesting labor and a fundamental reliance on physical resources, as much a portrait of individuals as the circumstances around their very existence. Curator: Perhaps we can also see a meditation on inherited trauma, a quiet rebellion echoed through their poses and glances. These features, from the subjects to his painterly touches, serve as an alternative dialogue against our understandings of how identities form. Editor: It’s that tension between the historical weight of oil paint and the contemporary, almost defamiliarized subject matter that makes this more than just a portrait. The clash tells a silent, material story. Curator: Ultimately, this painting is successful because it demands a re-evaluation, in both the subjects, and ourselves; making us confront comfortable and imposed ideals. Editor: Indeed, Nerdrum makes a work demanding consideration; forcing the viewer to confront materiality and representation in its rawest form.