Henrik Olai Kaarstein presents new work in 'New Promises'

Sensual, poetic, restless, intimate, fragile, energetic… Henrik Olai Kaarstein plays a lively game of push-and-pull under the multi-coloured patchwork of "New Promises".

The scent of forbidden fruit, the tangibility of loss, the aftertaste of memory. You need all your senses to lose yourself – cautiously, hungrily, restlessly – in the rolling, sometimes turbulent internal landscapes that Henrik Olai Kaarstein creates on the canvas.

In "New Promises", his exhibition that is currently running at c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e, the Oslo-born artist manages to create an incessant push-and-pull between emotions, thoughts, memories, visions, and actions, both his and ours, which position his work – a number of new monumental canvasses and a series of precious sculptures and looped video fragments from his archives – at an intersection between enduring and submitting, revealing and concealing.

Permanently on the verge of shifting shape, escaping meaning, transitioning. "I like to have some sort of uneasiness to the work, both on the level of technique and semantics. It's okay if you don't always have an answer," Kaarstein says somewhat coyly, tasting every word before he casts it into the world.

"It keeps the work on the edge. That is something I learned during my studies in Frankfurt. Every time I had to present work, there were silences, and I eventually just started inventing things. I don't think I have done that today. [Laughs] I just don't like being too explicit in my references. I want the works to contain as few of them as possible. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with you answering the questions."

I can't go on, I'll go on
Sweet flesh, but a hard pit. You see pictures of men – trapped, contained, embraced? – in patterned frames, multi-coloured patchworks, made by almost mathematically laying out pieces of tissue paper, filling up the gaps with lacquer and crushed soft pastels, gluing them all on a canvas, adding colour, and varnishing the whole thing. Images, extracted from hazy memories.

"They're based on images from glossy fashion magazines which I used to collect and enjoyed leafing through," explains Kaarstein. "I had vague memories of these images, of what I liked about them. They all tried to convey this sort of romantic, grunge-like style, somewhat intellectual and different. Which didn't make any sense, really. To me, they're men, lying around naked more than being naked, already half asleep, more after than before the act."

It is the after of memory. Of the layer of varnish that fixes everything, that freezes whatever is in movement. Merciless and necessary: we can't always only move forward. I can't go on, I'll go on. But it is also the after in the title of the exhibition. Kaarstein: "'New Promises' is a very personal title. I studied in Frankfurt for five years, and I remember having a hard time getting to work, because my life had become quite weird and unstructured. It just wasn't happening. Not by choice, but I was making too many mistakes, fucking up a lot."

"There was no sense of structure, which to me is very essential and which I need to work. Being invited to this show was a nice kick in the ass for me. Brussels is my new home so to speak, and I felt I needed to show devotion. So I guess those new promises aim at the realisation, after a period of spiralling downwards and getting quite self-destructive, passive, and indifferent, of having to take myself more seriously and to get my act together."

Catch a glimpse
"A promise is also always a decision to hide something, to stop showing people a certain part of yourself: you will stop drinking, you will stop taking drugs, you will stop partying, you will stop being wasteful, you will stop eating, you will basically stop showing certain parts of yourself… The same goes for the exhibition: take the sculptures for example. They counter the explosive intimacy of the canvasses with fragility, a more precious nature, while being hidden on small ledges behind the paintings. That's what I aim for: you catch a glimpse of something, but there are things left unseen. It's not the whole picture you're seeing."

The many layers on the canvas allow Kaarstein to physically explore, dig up, and reconstruct memories, thoughts, and feelings. At the same time they protect him. "Often people are surprised to hear that my work, which has a messy, abstract, very energised side to it, is the result of a process in my studio that is actually quite calm and structured," Kaarstein adds.

"I guess it is just part of the natural duality of being an artist, the balance you're always looking for. I don't mind my work being sentimental…at all. But I don't want to go overboard and have it become some kitschy representation of my emotions, or, on the other hand, constrict myself too much. It's a search for the fine line where sentimentality encounters reflection." Where patterns and patchworks provide structure, something to hold on to…and borders – even if they are fluid.

> New Promises. > 18/03, c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e, Brussels