Somewhere A Bright Star Burns
29.08.2025-07.09.2025
Duo show with Tamara MacArthur at Visningsrommet USF curated by Ruby Eleftheriotis
Photos 1-4,7-13 by Mila Elisabeth Larvoll
With support from: The Bet Low Trust, Bergen Kommune, The European Union and Goethe Institute, Vestland Fylkeskommune, Nordic Artist Center Dale, Uillinn: West Cork Art Centre
Somewhere A Bright Star Burns
29.08.2025-07.09.2025
Duo show with Tamara MacArthur at Visningsrommet USF curated by Ruby Eleftheriotis. Featuring my new stop motion animation film ‘Black House Violet Sky’ (2025) with 5 channel sound installation from Feronia Wennborg.
Photos by Mila Elisabeth Larvoll
With support from: The Bet Low Trust, Bergen Kommune, The European Union and Goethe Institute, Vestland Fylkeskommune, Nordic Artist Center Dale, Uillinn: West Cork Art Centre
The Archer never appeared again and the Dogs changed to moss
When I moved to Bergen to study for my MFA a friend gave me a copy of ‘Drive your plow over the bones of the dead’ by Olga Tokarczuc. I read it quickly and feverishly, the way you do when you find yourself in a foreign country with lots of free time. The mystery of this book and the story of Janina, following the stars and the animals searching for clues, put me in my own inner mystery, as I tried to find clues as to what I wanted to say with my work, what it wanted to reveal to me and what it could contain. I was also listening to a lot of true crime podcasts, and maybe a little lost in my own psycho-drama, as I found myself in this new and strange city, surrounded by forested hills. Art-making is detective work, and like Janina, we are all in our own imagined mystery’s searching for clues that may or may not be of our own making… anyway I read the line ‘the Archer never appeared again and the Dogs changed to moss’ one day and wrote it down in my notebook. I knew the magic of that line would offer me something one day. At Hordaland Kunstsenter I had the chance to realise the past few years of work and study, with a large scale installation of sculpture and video. I am grateful to HKS and all the team for their support with this show, and to all the visitors and your nice comments. Especially thankful to Maria Sledmere, for contributing a new poem, Dalian Rynne for work on sound and Paul Smith for a beautiful poster, and big thanks to Ruby for her assistance and advice ✨
Thank you to all the beautiful visitors at the opening of ‘Somewhere A Bright Star Burns’ at USF Verftet. We were very moved by your attention and thoughtful words! Tusen Takk alle sammen! The exhibition is open this week til Sunday from 12-5. Photos very kindly taken by Nils Øverås.
Somewhere A Bright Star Burns
TAMARA MACARTHUR and JACK O’FLYNN
29.08–07.09
USF Visningsrommet
@visningsrommetusf
OPENING: Friday 29 August, 18:00–21:00*
Saturday 30 August to Sunday 7 September, 12:00–17:00 daily
*Performance on the opening night only
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Underneath your feet, black sands glitter and crumble away. A purple mossy forest grows knotted gnarled branches that twist into the sky. Everything around you is alive, collapsing and mutating as houses grow roots and the moon falls from above.
Still, you endlessly and fervently search for the bright star. A spark of promise, a glimmer of hope amongst the hopelessness. Maybe one day you steal a glimpse of it through the twisted pines - that faraway dream, lonesomely burning above a serene, blue-yellow mountain.
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Curated by Ruby Eleftheriotis
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Supported by: Bergen Kommune, The Bet Low Trust, The European Union & Goethe Institute, Vestland Fylkeskommune, Nordic Artist Center Dale, Uillinn: West Cork Art Centre
@rubyeleni@jackaoflynn@tamaramacarthur
Kiosken is proud to present the exhibition «WHEN WE SEE YOU» by Jack O’Flynn in collaboration with Connie Hurley, Tamara Macarthur, Lisa Rytterlund, Clea Filippea and Ambra Grassi.
Dates: 9th - 31st of May
Opening: 9th of May from 17:00 - 20:00
When we see you is a collaborative art-making project began by Jack O’Flynn in 2021, encompassing collaboration, art, writing, and workshops inspired from the Major Arcana of the Tarot de Marseille.
Over several years and across different countries Jack has playfully re-created cards found in the Tarot de Marseille using the materiality of artists Connie Hurley, Tamara Macarthur, Lisa Rytterlund, Clea Filippea, and Ambra Grassi in a process of exchange and friendship.
‘Beginning in the lockdown of 2020 as a postal collaboration with Connie Hurley. The project has continued throughout the years, as a way for me to connect with the Tarot, and to learn from other artist’s practices I admire. Collaborations have taken form in ceramic, paper maché, textile, and metal. We pull a card together to work with, and once I have received their material I draw the image, navigating the artist’s boundaries and openings provided in the card. The final result brings the imagery of the Major Arcana to a new context, playfully interpreting the original image. The resulting card is a playful interaction between two artists, seeing each-other, sharing a space in the mysterious world of a Tarot card.’
BIO
Jack O’Flynn (He/ Him, b.1993) is an Irish artist based in Bergen, Norway. His practice is focused on combinations of sculpture, installation, drawing and animation, which he uses to create enveloping and intimate worlds of texture, form, image, and sound. Jack received his MA from the Academy of Art, University of Bergen (KMD) in 2023. Recent solo exhibitions include ‘The Archer never appeared again and the Dogs changed to moss’ at Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway (2023) and ‘The Palace of Humming Trees’ French St. Glasgow, Scotland (2021).
Kiosken’s program is generously supported by Bergen Kommune, Norsk Kulturrådet and Vestland Fylkeskommune
My exhibition River Songs of the Violet Forest was reproduced in Replikk journals recent issue on the theme of ‘Monsters’ - the exhibition was held back in October in Nonnester Chapel in Bergen
Thank you to art editor Sofie Opdal for generously reproducing this exhibition so that it can live on in a publication, and thank you for the lovely words about my work
“The drawings and installations create a window to a different world – however, it’s not a world that necessarily exists only beyond us, but rather within us. It’s a magical, mystical and whimsical world. What is a ‘monster’? Remember when you were a child, walking in the woods? There seemed to be endless possibilities, fantasies and monsters just behind the next tree. This is the place, the feeling, that Jack’s art makes accessible…”
Sofie Opdal
Published along with a poem by Ruby Eleftheriotis, written in response to the drawings.
Tusen Takk @tidsskriftet_replikk@toujourstristesse
Took another tumble into the Major Arcana exploring the Fool, the wisdom of insecurity and beginner’s mind ~ if your inclined, read some thoughts in the link ~ Artwork created in collaboration with Ambra Grassi @gipsyember on a card of natural fibre and plant dye ~ sent to me from Italy before finishing the image with colouring pencil and pen. Grazie Ambra! ✨
The Fool, Le Mat
Jack O’Flynn & Ambra Grassi
Colouring pencil, plant dye on natural fiber 23.5X39CM
2025
Thank you @uillinnwestcorkarts for having me on residency at beginning of this year - here are some in process shots from my time working in the studio on a new stop motion animation film 🌌 thank you also to collaborators Katie O’Grady @katie.o.grady_ and Maria Sledmere @cherry_melancholic , Thank you Margaret for putting me up, Thanks to @culturemoveseurope for the support ✨✨✨
Photos from The River Song of the Waterhouse workshop on Tuesday @uillinnwestcorkarts utilising @jackaoflynn practice and in process works from his residency along with creative writing prompts from @cherry_melancholic to think through the weirdness of coexistence ✨
Thank you so much to those who came, wrote poetic responses, built worlds in mapmaking and were open to our exploratory discussion ~ like a crying cat drifting in a paper boat to become a motif for an ecological grief or a mountain transforming into a house with eyes getting up and rolling away as a future haunting that our home is not permanent. 🌙
Photos by @_tino3000_
