Trude Viken: Twilight Dwellers : Gallery One • In-Person and Online

Opening Reception & Annual Winter Party: February 28, 6-9pm

We are pleased to present Trude Viken’s debut exhibition with Ricco/Maresca

Born in 1969 in Lødingen, Norway, Viken grew up in a nautical town that fostered her early passion for art. However, societal pressures and her parents’ desire for her to pursue a stable career in healthcare shifted her path during her teenage years. She became a nurse’s aide, a profession that continues to permeate her work—manifesting through cross symbolism, references to healthcare uniforms, and an acute focus on the interior lives and roles of women. Viken reflects on the swift, blurry years of adulthood, during which she married, started a family, and lived the domestic life envisioned for her by others, all while quietly nurturing her artistic voice.

Throughout these years, Viken never stopped creating art in private. In her late forties, she applied to the Oslo National Academy of the Arts but was denied admission. This setback only fueled her determination. Around 2010, she fully committed to her practice, and her breakthrough came in 2018, launching a meteoric rise marked by relentless creativity and numerous solo and group exhibitions.

Twilight Dwellers delves into Viken’s exploration of inner truths, conjuring images of beings that inhabit the transitional space between day and night. The title evokes creatures untethered by the boundaries of light and darkness, mirroring the human experience of navigating the interplay between the external world and the inner self.

Viken’s work poses an unsettling yet profound question: What would our fantasies, neuroses, and life experiences look like if they physically manifested on our bodies? Would they appear as thick, new layers of flesh—or in more surreal forms, like a bright red beak? Her art spans textured, distorted portraits to large-scale, otherworldly scenes featuring strange creatures in enigmatic settings. A central theme in her oeuvre is the female figure, which she explores both as a projection into the outside world and as a vessel for interiority. This fascination began with her celebrated Diary Notes series in 2014—and now exceeds 250 moody and fantastical portraits.

The artist’s use of color is as fearless as her approach to paint itself. Thick, physical layers of oil paint are carved and sculpted into forms, giving her works a strikingly tactile, almost three-dimensional quality. These surfaces, brimming with tension and vulnerability, are suggestive of raw emotional truths. Her paintings exude a freshness that feels highly sophisticated while remaining uncontrived and immediate.

Often regarded as a contemporary expressionist, Viken defies simple categorization. Her distinctive style—characterized by gnarled textures and bold, extravagant forms—serves as a means to amplify the emotional core of her work, rather than as an end in itself. The intensity and authenticity of her artistic vision resonate deeply, drawing viewers into an experience that is both visceral and profoundly human.