From Norway, Translating Identities Through Art ... and Ice

The images are intense—colorful, dark, humorous, lyrical. They defy categorizing, and "mixed media" is a term that seems not quite up to the task of describing them.

Lene Keingarsky, whose work is on view through August 11 at the Case Gallery, is an artist very deeply interested in people: all the many different kinds of people, to the point where her works are similar to human bodies in some repects. They are made up of different systems, interacting with one another in ways both seamless and incongruous, at times sublime and at others, chaotic.

And like the individuals depicted in her art, the works themselves will one day break down and move back into the earth. All of the art on display in Ardmore currently is made up of biodegradable materials. Rice bags take the place of traditional canvases.

The artist even managed to incorporate ice into the mix of her media, experimenting in "the magic of the darkroom," as she put it this week.

"Keingarsky’s art has always been about people," wrote Ann Marie Casey, principle photographer and proprietor of the , in Ardmore, when the show opened July 8. "It transmits to how as humans we attach experiences positive and negative to body and memory."

In this video, Casey tried to capture in words what she finds special about Keingarsky’s show, and touches on the sensitivity of having a Norwegian featured in her gallery, after the horrific killings last week in Norway.

Early next week, look for a full story and more images of the art from the Ardmore Patch, based on an interview with the artist this week.