The 12th Geoje International Art Festival opened on October 1st.

Visual artist Heidi Fosli from Sandefjord, Norway, serves as the Jury Chairman, Artistic Director, and Director of the festival, working for the Haegeumgang Theme Museum / Yukyung Art Museum in South Korea.

Fosli is an internationally acclaimed professional artist who lives and works extensively in Arpino, Italy. She thrives in the Italian countryside, which serves as a major source of inspiration for her work. She is represented in six permanent art museum collections worldwide—in the USA, China (National Art Museum of China), Denmark, Italy, South Korea, and the World Virtual Museum (virtual)—with a total of 36 paintings, and also has public art in Italy and Norway. In 2019, she was invited to and participated at the Venice Biennale.

This is the third consecutive year she has been appointed as Jury Chairman. On October 20th, she will be present at the festival to inaugurate the international exhibition. No fewer than 367 artists from 52 countries are participating. Notably, this year features an impressive 12 Norwegian artists in the juried exhibition along with a large delegation of artists from Israel and the rest of the world. 

Throughout the year, she has also selected and collaborated with an international jury consisting of 18 artists.

As is customary for jury members at this exhibition, Fosli is also participating with an artwork of her own.

Documentation regarding the prestigious award from the National Assembly of South Korea, from the Mayor of Geoje, and other awards received this year is attached.


Art critic Prof. Paolo Levi argues: “Through the extraordinary use of color, which goes far beyond just aesthetic research, Heidi Fosli gives free heterogeneous expressive potentials that come from an internalized study.”

Well-known art critic Vittorio Sgarbi writes: Fosli uses a color in clear expressionist heritage, in keeping up with the best Scandinavian tradition, extreme vibration itself in thick and cohesive brushstrokes, almost like Nabis. The cold shades alternate with the warmth where ice haloes will shine with volcanic fires, in a glowing, contrasting, sometimes disturbing, but flawless visionary balance.

Italian art historian Daniela Fraioli claims that Fosli is revolutionizing Impressionism! Italian art critic and writer Costanzo Costantini calls her a “daughter of Ibsen and Munch”, and art critic Salvatore Russo says she communicates a new language with her art!

As the first Norwegian artist in history, she received a silver, a bronze and a tin medal for her work from the prestigious academy “Arts-Science-Lettres” in Paris, and has received 35 awards and recognitions from many countries. Heidi Fosli has had 36 solo exhibitions since her debut in 2006 and has participated in 78 collective exhibitions worldwide. She has been selected and exhibited at the prestigious SNBA (Salon) exhibition in the Louvre Paris, London Biennale, Verona Triennale, MIIT Museum of Contemporary Art in Turin, Museum of Art & Science in Milan, Chianciano Biennale and Bienial Barcelona MEAM Museum for modern art. She was selected as “Artists of the World” in Cannes by Marina Picasso (Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter), where she also received an “Honorable mention” from Picasso! She has had a solo exhibition in the Vatican City of Rome, exhibited in the Presidential Palace in Rome, had a retrospective solo exhibition invited by the Mastroianni Museum in Italy, and has had solo exhibitions in New York, Rome, Vienna, Oslo and Berlin to name a few. She has exhibited all over the world from China and Hong Kong in the east to New York and Nevada in the west. Her works have been purchased by private collectors and companies in Norway and abroad, including the United States, Sweden, the Netherlands, England, Poland, Germany, Italy, Hong Kong, France and Denmark.

Fosli studied art at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, and also holds a degree in psychology from the University of Oslo with the subjects of social anthropology and sociology. She has also been a student of Oddmund Raudberget in sculpture, works with oil painting and graphics, and paints intuitive and colorful paintings in both impressionistic and expressionistic style. Primary sources of inspiration are Claude Monet and Munch’s symbolism.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Central to Fosli’s art are depersonalized human representations, and she is mainly an impressionist painter, but also makes portraits. She works in both the figurative and abstract traditions. Her work is soulful and intuitive. She has stated that she tries to convey the wonder of our existence with her art, and also highlight an imbalance in our society. She focuses on expressing powerful and dramatic emotions in interpersonal relationships in order to address issues in our society. Color is an important element of her expression.

She uses symbolism to a great extent, and ambiguity is central, focusing on the big questions about our existence. She tries to mirror the contemporary world we live in. Fosli finds inspiration from her extensive travelling, but also from the environment of everyday life with political influence and based on mechanisms in our society, from nature and silence. Our quest for justice, democracy, freedom, gender equality, and the pursuit of all forms of oppression are important topics in a global perspective of interest in her work.