Marking fifteen years since its founding in 2011, Queen Sonja Print Award presents a summer exhibition dedicated to the collaborative projects that have shaped its development. Bringing together works created in close dialogue with invited artists, the exhibition highlights collaboration as both a working method and a central value within the award.
At the core of these collaborations is HM Queen Sonja’s own artistic practice. Working closely with each invited artist, she engages in a shared process where ideas, techniques, and visual languages are exchanged and developed over time. Her sustained commitment to printmaking forms a continuous thread throughout the projects, connecting them across years and contexts.
The exhibition traces these artistic encounters over time. In printmaking, collaboration is often integral to the process, bringing together different perspectives and ways of working. Within the framework of Queen Sonja Print Award, these exchanges have also played an important role in strengthening the foundation and expanding its reach.
The point of departure is Three Journeys – Three Landscapes (2011), created in collaboration with Kjell Nupen and Ørnulf Opdahl. The project explores landscape through three distinct artistic approaches, where differences in expression create a broader, shared reflection on nature as both subject and source of inspiration.
This was followed by Texture (initiated in 2014), developed with Magne Furuholmen. Here, the collaboration centres on the relationship between image and text. Visual forms and written elements interact across the surface, creating layered compositions where meaning shifts between what is seen and what is read.
In Branches (2018), created with Emma Nishimura, a recipient of the Queen Sonja Print Award, the focus turns to themes of memory and continuity. The combination of organic forms and the recurring furoshiki motif introduces a dialogue between nature and personal history, suggesting what is held, preserved, and passed on.
Mellom rom (initiated in 2022), realised with Håvard Homstvedt, looks inward. The collaboration focuses on the details of domestic space, where subtle displacements and reworkings shift how we recognise and read familiar surroundings. Fragments are isolated and recomposed, allowing everyday interiors to emerge with a heightened sense of presence and ambiguity.
Project: Lofoten (2022), developed with Lars Lerin, moves in the opposite direction, towards the openness of landscape. Rather than structure, it emphasises sensation: light, weather, and atmosphere unfolding through soft transitions of colour. The works linger on fleeting conditions, where perception is shaped as much by mood as by form.
Together, these projects show how collaboration can expand artistic practice while also contributing to a wider context. Each represents a significant investment of time, knowledge, and shared commitment to printmaking, and has been generously donated in its entirety. All proceeds from their sale go directly to supporting Queen Sonja Print Award and its prizes.
As such, the exhibition not only celebrates fifteen years of artistic exchange but also highlights collaboration as a continuing force, one that supports both the development of the award and the future of printmaking.