Wallpaper - 10.2019

PHOTOGRAPHY: PAULINE CARANTON FASHION: AYLIN BAYHAN WRITER: LAURA HAWKINS

OUT OF OFFICE | TORBJØRN RØDLAND

BB: How do you take your coffee?

TR: Black, but I’m not a daily user.

Did you have a lot of creative

support when you were growing up?

Sometimes I think children of artists

have an easier path to becoming

artists themselves – they see what’s

possible and what it takes. I didn’t

have that example, or even support.

My parents both worked in the post

office in Stavanger, where I grew up.

I was advised to get a job and a house

and then maybe do art after work

in the basement. There was artistic

talent in my family but, before me,

no one really went for it. Making

a living as an artist was outside

of what my parents deemed possible.

How do you approach portraits?

I really like people. I wouldn’t be

able to do portraits if I wasn’t driven

to express something through a face.

The conversation on set is rarely

about what to emote and I often

don’t know what the final image will

express. The process is more intuitive

and experimental than it looks.

As a student of the Enneagram, I am

probably more interested in typology

than most artists. I try to do images

that are deeply photographic

but still surprising. I was a teenage

cartoonist and I carry some of that

approach to photography.

How do your photographs relate

to each other?

Some photographs desperately need

the context of an exhibition or a book

to be fully seen whereas others can

stand alone. My stepping stone for

making photographs is the critical

appropriation of popular images

that dominated so much of 1980s art.

But rather than moving a commercial

baby picture into an art context,

I’m driven to make my own. I try

to make images that don’t need

an explanation. I want people to bring

their own experiences to the image

or else it won’t live. Everyone should

be able to relate to some of the images

on display without having to consult

a text. I have to produce what I’d

like to see. I need to be interested

in looking at each photograph for

a long time. Presence and execution

is more important than a good idea.

BODIL BLAIN

SHARES COFFEE

AND

CREATIVE SMALL TALK

WITH...

the Norwegian

photographic artist

There was a stomping sensibility on

the A/W19 runways, as brands from

Bottega Veneta to Christian Dior, and

from Prada to The Row, bolstered their

various footings on the catwalks with

the addition of a sturdy pair of lug-soled

boots. Tod’s, too, took a well-trodden

path, sending models down in two-

Romper stompers

These boots are made for talking

toned knee-high boots with a part-

equestrian, part-punk mindset.

The boots’ toe caps were also fortified

with the brand’s signature Gommino

studs (chromed metal micro studs),

casting a rebellious and resistant touch.

Now that’s one-step-ahead design.

tods.com

BOOTS, £880, BY TOD’S

HALCYON, PRICE ON REQUEST,

BY JOCHEN OTT, FROM

LONDON GLASSBLOWING

Newspaper

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