Emma Zanella, presentation of individual exhibition at Diecidue Arte, in the publication prepared by the gallery, May 2002

The pictorial surface created by Jorunn Monrad pulls our eyes into a dizzying and incessant movement in search of a compositive center, of one or more dominating nuclei, of pauses of reflection that can actually never be found. In fact, the expressive characteristic of Monrad is precisely that she sees her canvases as continuous surfaces, literally filled by a sign that is frenetically multiplied, invading the space, filling it to the point of almost venturing beyond it. Since her early works, Monrad’s sign-writing seems to move in the pictorial field as an end in itself. Precise, outlined, meticulously contrasted by a monochrome background that makes it stand out, it carries the memory of an antique, oriental-style decoration capable, by itself, of giving the space vitality and movement. The quality and the chromatic intensity of the color chosen by Monrad, both for the surface and the graphic sign, then contribute to render the effect of the optical movement even stronger. The acid, bright greens, the reds, the ochres contrasted with orange, black and blue, always intense and very evenly laid, underscore the pulsation of the sign. But a more attentive reading, concentrated on the form of the sign itself rather than on the optic effects, makes us realize that it is anything but a purely decorative motif. On the contrary, it is an indefinable tiny organism with head, eyes, paws that is created and procreated, moving sinuously on the surface of the painting. It is a primary form, a “reptile line that pulsates with animal life” (Trini, 1997), a symbol of life and procreation. “How come this module?” Jorunn Monrad asks herself in the autobiographic and critical notes published here. “Because – asserts the artist – it is the simplest way to describe an animal, and with the word animal I intend a living being”. That, in its primordial quality, and for the simple fact of existing and continuously changing form and position, summarizes the mysterious and mythical idea of life. That has no predetermined beginning or end but moves, taking inspiration from the magic of different times and situations. In fact, Monrad’s world is a primordial and imaginary one, at the same time emotional and rational, that between its origins in the artist’s Norwegian childhood where there were no clear limits between “reality, art and the mythical world that was rooted in everything: stones, mountains, lakes and animals...” (Monrad, 2002). In this environment populated by giants, witches, fairies, strange animals and yet guided by the reason of Man, Monrad has developed not just a marked interest for ornamentation and animal forms, but has also found a prolific equilibrium between a free creative fantasy and a rational logic capable of controlling the formal results of her work. In fact, in Monrad’s paintings the fantastic and vital, soft and rounded forms are executed with an attention and precision that requires a slow, time-consuming and profoundly meditative work. The open spaces, swarming with the vitality of the sings are therefore at the same time structured through underlying forms, words, letters, chess symbols, that give rise to a dialectic confrontation between instinctive freedom and lucid reason, capable of maintaining the creative tension throughout the time of execution.
Emma Zanella

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