Artist talk with Ragna Bley in conversation with Kati Kivinen
Ragna Bley is an artist based in Oslo working primarily with painting, and also with sculpture, text, and performance.
Ragna Bley is an artist based in Oslo working primarily with painting, and also with sculpture, text, and performance. Embracing spontaneity and scale, she draws inspiration ranging from science fiction and the natural world to art history, pushing the boundaries of her medium with a restless commitment to experimentation. Her intuitive work expresses conceptual ideas through vibrant colour, evoking living organisms, shifting weather, and imagined landscapes. Underpinning this diverse sensibility is a strong technical grounding, honed through her BFA at the National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo (2011) and her MA in Painting from the Royal College of Art, London (2015).
Language: English
First come, first served
A fair ticket is required
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Event information
Sat April 25, 15:00-16:00
Pavilion
Participants
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Participant
Ragna Bley
Artist
Bley (b. 1986, Uppsala, Sweden) has held solo exhibitions at OSL contemporary, Oslo (2024); Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2022); Malmö Konsthall (2020); and Kunsthall Oslo (2017). Selected group exhibitions include The Canvas Can Do Miracles, The Contemporary Austin – Jones Center, Austin, Texas (2025); Ars Fennica 2025, Helsinki Art Museum (2025–26); After the Sun – Forecasts from the North, Gammel Strand, Copenhagen and AKG Buffalo, New York (2024); Abstraction (re)creation, Le Consortium, Dijon (2024); The Hour of Reckoning, Henie Onstad Art Center (2021); and The Moderna Exhibition, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2018).
Bley was among the nominees for the Ars Fennica Prize 2025, one of the most significant contemporary art awards in the Nordic region. Upcoming exhibitions include When I'm in My Painting, a group exhibition at Kistefos, The Twist, together with Ida Ekblad, Oscar Murillo, and Albert Oehlen (May–November 2026), and a solo exhibition at Vandalorium, Sweden (2027). -
Participant
Kati Kivinen
Head of Exhibitions at the HAM Helsinki Art Museum
Kati Kivinen (PhD) is an art historian and curator based in Helsinki, currently working as Head of Exhibitions at HAM Helsinki Art Museum (2022–). In 2025, she co-curated the 3rd Helsinki Biennial, Shelter: Below and Beyond, Becoming and Belonging, with Blanca de la Torre. Her curatorial practice explores the diversity of current artistic practices, particularly within temporal and spatial forms, as well as artists’ moving image and sonic work. Recently, her focus has centred on critical ecologies and the Anthropocene’s emerging aesthetic sensibilities.
Previously, she was Chief Curator for Collections at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma (2017–2022). Her independent curatorial work includes numerous interdisciplinary exhibitions, most recently Acts of Care, the Finnish Pavilion at the 15th Gwangju Biennial (2024), and Fragile Times at Galerie im Körnerpark in Berlin (2020). Between 2011–2017 and 2021–2024, she served as a board member of IKT – International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art.