Series Spotlight - Mark Making by Kristine Hegre

Translating to the ‘School of Things’, the Mono-ha art movement was an aesthetic theory founded in Tokyo in the 1960s by Korean and Japanese artists that rejected the values of modern Western art. In response to rampant industrialisation and post-war modernity in Japan, these artists believed that technology nullified the artist’s ability to create, so they set out to stop trying to create and instead rearrange by bringing ‘things’ together in an as unaltered state as possible. They rejected traditional ideas of representation and focused on the world as it is by engaging with materials and properties which revealed the interdependence between these ‘things’ and the space around them. Mono-ha art became just as much about the space around ‘things’ as the ‘things’ themselves. 

This collection of Kristine Hegre’s artwork was inspired by the conceptual and experiential nature of Mono-ha art. These rich and textural prints are reminiscent of the Mono-ha focus on the encounter between natural and industrial materials. Featuring black and white smeared and smudged to create shades of grey with a free and unrestrained chalk-like texture, Hegre’s prints share the juxtaposition of hard and soft, smooth, and rough, organic, and industrial with the Mono-ha movement. Although Mono-ha artwork was often ephemeral and frequently destroyed after exhibiting, this collection of mark-making prints is long lasting and timeless.