U of M art librarian and artist Liv Valmestad concluded her exhibition Ma(r)king Space last week at the Dr. Paul H. T. Thorlakson Gallery on the third floor of the Elizabeth Dafoe Library. Using soft shades of blues, pinks and lilacs, her artwork depicts serene but stirring landscapes of the North Atlantic coast and the Prairies. 

Valmestad’s artistic practice is deeply shaped by her love of nature, describing it as a place of inspiration, solace and refuge. Her work is also informed by her identity as a Norwegian Canadian, and she has spent much time in Norway and the Prairies. In the past decade, she completed artist residencies in Norway, Iceland and recently Newfoundland — the focus of this exhibition.

“In my latest series, I explore the raw beauty of Newfoundland’s Atlantic coast, continuing my inquiry into Nature’s emotional and spatial presence,” she wrote about Ma(r)king Space. “Newfoundland: Peaches and Cream,” for example, depicts swirling purple skies juxtaposed by a calm sea, evoking an undulating landscape. 

Valmestad’s coastal paintings contrast with the prairie landscapes in the exhibition, but the theme of the sublime unites works in Ma(r)king Space. 

“The whole notion of a sublime as an aesthetic framework [is] where nature or landscape inspires a sense of awe in the viewer […] They’re rendered awestruck, either from nature’s power or the scale or the expanse of nature. So I was very much interested in that,” she commented. 

The sublime can also be terrorizing, according to Valmestad, invoking a kind of horror or unease.  

“There [are] different definitions for the sublime, but one of them is this infinite space and vastness, and we feel dwarfed by that.”

This can be seen in “Alone,” a painting where a dusky sunset and globular clouds rest on a long prairie highway with the headlights of a lone car in the far distance.

Other than the sublime, Valmestad writes that her work is guided by deep ecology, a theory developed by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess and author George Sessions advocating for the intrinsic value of all lives and the importance of biodiversity. 

“[Naess] talks about how important nature is and how we need to respect it, and how it has inherent rights and needs to be respected in that way,” the artist stated. 

Valmestad wishes her art will inform people on what our place in nature should be. 

“We need to be stewards of nature. And if we [aren’t], we won’t have any of these spaces to find refuge in or to even depict,” she said.

For more information on Liv Valmestad and her work, visit livvalmestadart.wordpress.com.