Rita Kirkeby Larsen

Working with ornamentation, you enter a universe of spirituality; working slowly brings peace, as expressed in the pictures.
The original, often oriental patterns, that I am inspired by, contain great beauty
and are constructed through fundamental mathematic principles, which allow you
to explore continuously and be astonished.

Quite rightly ornamentation is often associated with the fantastic creations of
Arabic art, Alhambra in Spain as an example.
But ornamentation and repetition can be encountered everywhere in our lives
and society: a row of windows, a line of cars, a brick wall, a scaffold, a line of trees,
a picket fence etc.
Even when created with less beauty than Alhambra, an important inspiration is obviously present for all of us, when we open our eyes to it.

Initially I examine the ornament. I get absorbed in it, familiarize with it, and then release myself from it, to redeem my mobility.
The foundation of order, and thus of ornamentation, is a grid of squares.
It applies to all forms of ornamentation and patterns as a stem form.
The square is a necessary precaution, but has to be dissolved or hidden.

I work with the ornament as decoration. In this case the ornament represents
the physical world, which often is surrounded by a more spherical, spiritual world.
I am inspired by the interrelations between these two worlds in my work.
The thoughts that arise, when something ordinary or trivial faces eternity,
are interesting.

There is a significant use of many different patterns and ornaments in my work,
in a conglomerate of figurative and abstract signs. When the figurative appears,
I am working with the human being, and objects we are surrounded by,
in our daily life.

My pictures insist on the in between.