Laura Gaiger
Degree: MFA
University: The University of Bergen
Graduation Year: 2020
New Blood Art Commentary
Laura Gaiger makes paintings that hold the texture of inner life. Guided by Gaston Bachelard’s poetics of space and a deep sensitivity to the collective unconscious, her work opens up the domestic as a site of resonance - intimate, symbolic, and emotionally attuned. There’s something precise and slow-burning in her work - like memory that hasn’t decided yet whether it’s private or shared. The objects hold presence. The colour holds tension. The edges of things are where the meaning moves.
The rooms, the objects, the light - none of it is incidental. Each element feels chosen by a deeper logic. Dreamlike in structure. She paints the places memory lives. Where feeling is stored. Where meaning gathers slowly.
There’s a quiet confidence in how she holds her world.
The work arrives whole. Already certain of what it’s doing.
Whatever the scale, the attention is the same - quiet, steady, certain.
Each work is an encounter.
Her practice moves between large-scale installations and smaller works in oil and woodcut.
Gaiger studied at The Glasgow School of Art and the University of Bergen. She has exhibited widely across the UK and Europe, and now teaches painting, fresco, and colour theory at the Institute for Contemporary Art in Bergen.
Artist Statement
Laura Gaiger (b. Southampton, 1992) makes paintings and installations to explore the image of the landscape and its role in politics and culture. She received a BA(Hons) in Painting and Printmaking from The Glasgow School of Art in 2016, and a Masters in Fine Art from The University of Bergen in 2020. She has received scholarships from the Royal Scottish Academy, Arts Council Norway and Norwegian Visual Artists’ Renumeration Fund, a studio scholarship from Vestland Fylkeskommune, and has exhibited in group shows across the UK, in Spain, New York and Norway, including debuting at Høstutstillingen in 2021. Gaiger has had solo exhibitions at USF Visningsrommet in Bergen, Ål Kunstforening in Hallingdal, Nye Bokboden and Kunstgarasjen in Bergen. She is working towards a solo exhibition in the UK in 2024.
Gaiger makes large scale paintings with varying degrees of figuration, on canvas and as installations. Alongside these she makes more experimental smaller works, in oil paint and woodcut. The focus is often on using painting to propose a revised cultural image of the landscape, composing scenes which give alternatives to the conventional framing of the landscape and nature. Although the paintings are dominated by interacting figures rather than empty vistas, Gaiger therefore considers them to be part of the ‘landscape painting’ genre. Her works pervert the tropes of painting and visual culture which have (mis-)shaped our collective memory of the land, interspersing them with personal imaginings of human-landscape relations past, present and future.
Gaiger works at the Institute for Contemporary Art, University of Bergen, as lecturer in Painting, Fresco and Colour Theory and Senior Engineer for the Painting Workshops. She also teaches independently.
Solo Exhibitions
(2023) A Time To, Muralverkstedet, Oslo, Norway
(2023) Anthroscaping, Kunstgarasjen, Bergen, Norway
(2022) Kulturlandskap, Aal Kunstforening, Aal, Norway
(2022) Tipping Points, Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway
(2022) Dinosaur Park, Nye Bokboden, Bergen, Norway
(2021) Common Land, USF Visningsrommet, Bergen, Norway
(2021) Allemannsretten, Leveld Kunstnartun, Leveld, Aal, Norway
(2021) Puncta, OVE Galleri, Bergen, Norway
(2018) Suppertime, Crownpoint Studios, Glasgow, UK
(2017) Helping on the Farm, Unit 42, The Hidden Lane, Glasgow, UK
(2017) Painting About, Motherwell Concert Hall and Theatre, Motherwell, UK
(2017) Lemon Yellow, The Old Hairdressers', Glasgow, UK
(2016) Painting & Decorating (at Glasgow School of Art Degree Show), The Tontine Building, Glasgow, UK
(2016) Recent Paintings, The Tontine Cafe, Glasgow, UK
(2015) Painting, The Plinth, The Plinth, Glasgow, UK
(2015) Painting In, The Art School, Glasgow, UK
(2014) Hung Up, The Mackintosh Building, Glasgow, UK
Group Exhibitions
(2023) Leiga Lansering, CM7, Bergen, Norway
(2022) BLOKK Anniversary Exhibition, USF Visningsrommet, Bergen, Norway
(2021) Vignettes & Pathways, Crownpoint Studios, Glasgow, UK
(2021) National Autumn Exhibition, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo, Norway
(2021) Liminal Spaces, Design & Technology Learning Centre, Malta
(2020) MA2020 (Graduate Exhibition), KODE 2, Bergen, Norway
(2020) Window Exhibition, Various Locations, Bergen, Norway
(2019) Make Me/Destroy Me, USF Visningsrommet, Bergen, Norway
(2019) Syndesgate 1b, Sydnesgate 1, Bergen, Norway
(2018) RSA Open, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK
(2017) Glasgow Splash, Bella Juanita, Palma, Mallorca
(2017) Transmission Gallery Members' Show, Transmission Gallery, Glasgow, UK
(2017) RSA Open, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK
(2017) New Scottish Artists, David Roberts Art Foundation, Camden, UK
(2017) RSA New Contemporaries, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK
(2017) Pendolino Vol. 1, The New Glasgow Society, Glasgow, UK
(2016) Collective Memory: The Past and Future is Ours, Bushwick Studios, New York, USA
(2016) RSA Open, The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, UK
(2016) Painters Gonna Paint, The Tontine Building, Glasgow, UK
(2015) Construction & Destruction, The Scottish Maritime Museum, Irvine, UK
(2015) Nepal, Studio Warehouse Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
(2015) Safe and Healthy, The McLellan Galleries, Glasgow, UK
(2014) Head (and other mistakes), The Mackintosh Building, Glasgow, UK
(2014) 200%, The Reid Building, Glasgow, UK
Competitions, Prizes & Awards
(2016) The RSA John Kinross Scholarship
(2016) The Woon Foundation Prize (Longlisted)
(2017) Artist in Residence at The Royal Drawing School, Dumfries House, UK
(2020) Shortlisted for the Abbey Scholarship to the British School at Rome
(2020) Stipend for Newly Graduated Artist, The Arts Council, Norway
(2020) Establishing Stipend for Professional Artists, Bergen City Council, Norway
(2021) Artist in Residence & Solo Exhibition at Leveld Kunstnartun, Norway
(2021) 2021-2023 Graduate Studio Award, CS55 Studios, supported by Bergen Kommune and Vestland Fylkeskommune, Norway
(2021) Norwegian Artists' Association One Year Stipend
(2021) Vestland Fylkeskommune Artist Stipend
(2022) Artist in Residence at Art Farm Nebraska, USA
(2022) Norwegian Artists' Association One Year Stipend
(2023) Norwegian Artists' Association One Year Stipend
