Per Dybvig

Dybvig is an artist with a strong exploratory bent and an impressive productive capacity. He has used his characteristic line to produce illustrations for the newspapers Rogalands avis and Stavanger Aftenblad as well as numerous children’s books by authors such as Jo Nesbø, Trond Brænne and Bjørn Rørvik. At one point he ‘diverted’ the course of his line – from newspapers and books to art galleries and museums – but his strangely hybrid animals and interest in mass media’s presentation of news still figured in his works.

A fleeting moment is often the focal point, captured by rapid drawing on notepaper: a moment during a lecture, anonymous people on a sidewalk and in a café, fragmentary images from television and newspapers, snatches of radio news broadcasts and conversations overheard as a person passes by. 

Besides these fragmentary presentations of mass-media reality, which become somewhat absurd when torn from their original contexts, Dybvig creates his own imaginary universe: a place where roles are turned upside-down. Animals smoke, walk on two legs and hunt for a human hunter. Beavers have reindeer horns and rabbits shoot with rifles. In creating some of his recent works he has immersed himself in nature, digging into matter to explore and challenge both his motifs and his drawing techniques.

Photo: Per Dybvig, Moving White Flower, 2015/16. Gunther Lebowski