Nordic Design

Nordic Design is a series of large woodcuts printed on paper. They depict interior scenes from Idun Baltzersen’s own home, populated by the nuclear family that is herself, her partner and their child. Her time at BORCH Editions’ printmaking studio marked her first encounter with multi-coloured woodcuts, for which each colour is assigned its own printing plate. The woodcuts are charged with personal, autobiographical references. The complex, detailed interiors are ruminations on transitional phases in life: the birth of Baltzersen’s first child, the simultaneous move to a new flat and the mutual influences of these two significant events on each other.

“Before the birth of our child, our private environment was characterised by conscious decisions such as the arrangement of art on the walls or carefully selected books on the shelves,” says Baltzersen. “I was interested in how the arrival of a new person also triggered the arrival of new objects into this space, and how these objects resisted systematisation and developed a life of their own.”

Baltzersen’s work is characterised by a contemporary visual language. Nevertheless, it is informed by her very own set of art historical references. Her work on Nordic Design was influenced by her reflection about the genre of still life; the tension between carefully arranged objects laden with metaphorical meaning and seemingly randomly scattered everyday objects such as children’s toys.