Independent Art Fair: Trude Viken: Night Blondes / White Scenes • In-Person and Online

PIER 36

299 South Street
New York, 10002

Located on the Lower East Side at the
intersection of Montgomery Street and South Street

For the 2026 edition of the Independent Art Fair, we are proud to present a one-person booth dedicated to the work of Norwegian artist Trude Viken ( b. 1969). 

Viken came to painting through a hard-won second act: after years of making art on the side while working in healthcare, she turned fully to her practice later in life. The rise that followed has been remarkably swift, carrying her from a breakout solo presentation in New York to a string of international exhibitions in recent years.

In her Night Blonde series portraits, Viken conjures a cast of unruly protagonists—thickly painted, bow‑topped blondes whose outsized eyes, smeared makeup, and rubbery features stage the friction between outward performance and inner turmoil. Her impasto is not simply a stylistic flourish but a way of modeling psychic weight: faces appear kneaded into being, their surfaces bearing the traces of doubt, revision, and volatility.

The White Scene series paintings transpose this emotional intensity onto open, pale grounds populated by eccentric figures. In one canvas, bodies pile, tip, and strain around a small, stubborn flame; in another, a loose constellation of characters and a blazing sun suggest a scene suspended between play and catastrophe. Limbs become interchangeable, scale slips, and slapstick gestures brush against jeopardy, turning each composition into an allegorical theater of everyday life. Across both series, Viken’s paintings oscillate between grotesque and tender, comic and tragic, inhabiting the precise moment when a mask slips and a supposedly innocent scene suddenly reveals its undercurrent of anxiety, aggression, or longing.

FAIR HOURS

Thursday, May 14, 2026 | 11 AM – 5 PM (By Invitation)
Friday, May 15, 2026 | 11 AM – 7 PM
Saturday, May 16, 2026 | 11 AM – 7 PM
Sunday, May 17, 2026 | 11 AM – 6 PM

Henry Street Settlement Gala
Thursday, May 14, 2026 | 5 PM – 8 PM
Purchase your gala tickets here.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE FAIR: CLICK HERE