PAST EXHIBITION
Per Fronth: Carbon Compositions
October 7, 2008—November 4, 2008

Press Release

A photograph is generally seen as proof of something happening, or of someone being in front of the camera. This reality effect leads the spectator to acknowledge a photograph in a completely different way than one does a painting. One looks at a painting without recognition. We accept that a painting is fiction, but we take it for granted that a photograph often represents reality. The question Per Fronth examines in “Carbon Compositions” is what happens to the degree of reality when the principles of the two mediums are combined?

Per Fronth creates paintings using different incidences in his life to create a new story, composed of a number of photographs taken over the course of minutes or days. Fronth can be compared to a musician that samples elements from multiple songs and then layers the elements to create a unique composition. His collection of images are combined and embellished to create a reconstruction of a “new reality,” providing every picture with a new layer of meaning. Because Fronth uses his natural environment in his work, he creates a believable reality through the lens of a rich regional sensibility. Autobiographical story lines taken from the photographs of his southern Scandinavian home continue to resound in “Carbon Compositions.” The artworks are seemingly laced with pathos, yet are amazingly tempered by a Scandinavian top-of-the-world rollicking humor.

Although working and exhibiting extensively in the international arena, the artist now chooses to reside in Norway, his place of birth. Since starting his career as a photojournalist in Norway, Per Fronth has had over 20 solo exhibitions. Dealing often with epic statements, Fronth has documented such diverse events as the disappearing of the Xingu Tribe in Brazil to the last fox hunts of the Duke of Beaufort. Following his early success in 1998 with Dillon Gallery for the “Xingu Chronicles”, the artist has now chosen to document his personal arena. Dillon Gallery is proud to present Per Fronth’s uniquely poetic visions of the quiet intimacy of the private world he inhabits.

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