Untitled (Drawing for One Object #2)

Ane Mette Hol trained at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design in Stockholm and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo. Working in the media of drawing, video, and installation, she creates her art in processes that focus greatly on detail. Her methods resemble the traditional trompe l’oeil technique, where objects are depicted down to the slightest minutiae so that the reproduction is indistinguishable from the source. In Hol’s art, such items might be discarded photostats, paper rolls, graph paper, and measuring tapes.

In a series from 2014, Hol set out to recreate silk paper, which is used to package fragile objects and flower bouquets. In so doing, she recreated not only the various subdued pink, grey, and blue tones of such wrapping paper, but also the folds, kinks, and leftover tape that such paper acquires through usage. Hol thus widens the scope of drawing as a medium: even though she uses traditional techniques, she also adds a conceptual dimension in the spirit of Duchamp.

Hol’s drawings of discarded materials allow the viewer to see such materials in a new light. This method places her within a discourse on art that began already in the 1960s and 1970s, when for example the arte povera artists criticized modern-day consumer society, challenged the exalted status of art, and reimagined the range of materials that artists could use. With her reduplication strategies, also Ane Mette Hol seeks to reassess originality, replication, and the value of ephemeral, everyday objects as compared with objects of art.