Kari Dyrdal
Norway
b. 1952
"All my works place themselves between representation and abstraction, reality and illusion.”
As a little girl, Kari Dyrdal learned embroidery from her grandmother and so began a lifelong interest in textiles. As an adult, she studied textile design at both Bergen Kunsthandverkskole and at Croydon College of Art and Technology, London. Creating large-scale woven pieces, Dyrdal espouses the traditional methods and techniques of weaving while at the same time using new digital tools both in the research and production of her work. For this artist, theme and concept are researched through construction, both visually and materially in the loom with her starting point being her photographs, which are transformed to woven surfaces. The challenge is to give content to the technique and textural quality to the surface, to create work with a strong tactile presence that also has an intellectual dimension.
Kari Dyrdal’s work is included in a number of public collections including the National Museum, Oslo; the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and the KODE/Vestlandske Kunstindustrimuseum, Bergen. She lives and works in Norway where she is also professor in the Faculty of Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen.
