Eigil Nordstrøm is a painter living and working in East London. Born in Norway, he moved to the UK to study for a Diploma in fine art at The Art Academy, followed by an MA at City & Guilds of London Art School. He since won the 2014 ArtGemini Prize.
His work takes as its starting point the experience of light, observing the way it occupies a space. He often works from constructed spaces, boxes made out of wood or cardboard where light pours in through an opening, assuming the guise of a tangible substance on the surface.
The process of building the spaces leads towards the construction of immersive compositions on large canvases. These are done on the basis of incomplete sketches and memory rather than direct observation, allowing the fluidity of paint to surprise and the depicted location to take on a more ambiguous nature.
Light reveals textures, activates colours and illuminates structures; but equally it is the surface of these structures that allows the light to be seen, to assume a form. Rooms are rendered in ambiguous washes, serving as a containers in which light is held.
