Anne Katrine Senstad

Anne Katrine Senstad was raised in Singapore and Norway, and has been based in New York since 1990 but continues to work between New York and Oslo. She received her art education at Parsons School of Design and The New School for Social Research in New York 1994 and 1999.

Senstad’s practice lies in the multi disciplinary intersections of installation art, photography, video, neon sculpture, immersive installation, landart and site specificity, with a focus on the phenomena of perception and the cognitive system in response to the properties of light, sound and color, as well as her hybridized critical and poetic text based works on dialectics, literature, language and philosophy through use of signage and commercial materials and commodities. Senstad is concerned with sensorial aesthetics, perception and the transformative, - the transcendental ideas of art and philosophical practices. Through advanced in depth research she has examined spatial, topological and scientific phenomena of light, sound and color since the mid 1990’s, a foundation for her explorations in the experiential, participatory and experimental. The inherent lyricism in her work, creates a bridge between psychological elements, materiality and critical concerns. In her ongoing field work, she engages in cultural, social and political interactions through active, organic and personal involvement for a wider educational and collaborative platform between diverse ideologies, developing a new folklore and amalgamation between post-modern individualism and internationalism.

Notable exhibitions include Radical Light– Elements VI, at the new Seinajoki Kunsthall in  Finland, a 520 square meters (5,600 square feet) spatial light sculpture with a sound environment by JG Thirlwell, in collaboration with Art Promotion Centre Finland and Kai Art Center Estonia,  Music for Plutocracy at S12, in Bergen Norway, 2021 presenting a multi chromatic spatial neon sculpture installation ELEMENTS V on ethics and perception. In January 2020 Radical Light I opened at Kai Art Center, presenting ELEMENTS IV, a 450 square meters (4,843 square feet) all white spatial neon light sculptural work in the former historic submarine factory in Tallin with an enveloping sound by JG Thirlwell, How We Live Together at Yi Gallery in New York that included an online screening of Senstad’s short film Utopie/Utopia with acclaimed American actor Bill Sage created during the pandemic as a response to the global human condition and politics, Beckoned to Blue, SL Gallery New York presenting  ELEMENTS III Blue with sound by legendary polymath Catherine Christer Hennix. The installation was an indepth examination of the color blue and accompanied by an antechamber installation The Sensory Chamber. The exhibition Seen Unseen at He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, China, presented the second of her immersive light sculpture and color environment ELEMENTS II, 2018 as part of a major survey on contemporary Nordic art and design. The installation is a continuation of ELEMENTS I, which premiered as part of the group exhibition Through The Spectrum at Athr Gallery in Saudi Arabia alongside James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Carlos Cruz-Diez and Leo Villareal. 

Biennales include: The Vanity of Vanities - a one person exhibition at El Magazen Dell’Arte during the 56th Venice Biennale with sound by JG Thirlwell, and UNIVERSALS, at Officina Delle Zattere, Collaterali Eventi, 55th Venice Biennale as part of the exhibition Metamorphosis of the Virtual alongside ORLAN and Miguel Chevalier amongst others. In 2015 she produced a  22 - meter (90 - feet) long text based LED sculpture commissioned by the Bruges Art and Architecture Triennale in Belgium entitled Gold Guides Me, as part of her continuing critical research project Capitalism in the Public Realm.  As part of the Prospect 3 +, the New Orleans biennale, 2014, The Sugarcane Labyrinth was presented as an interior agriculture and film installation the centerpiece of the exhibition The Nature of Now. 

In 2010 she created a 5500 square meters (59,200 square feet) agricultural living land art sculpture in collaboration with Louisiana sugarcane farmer Ronnie Waguespack Jr entitled The Sugarcane Labyrinth raising awareness to sustainability and the value of localized agriculture, to wetland and coastal erosion issues, and conflicts of industrialized farming. Senstad was involved in numerous cultural and restorative projects in New Orleans as part of the post Hurricane Katrina restoration efforts, 2007-2010, in collaboration with KK Projects and Life is Art Foundation. 

In 2011 she completed a major public art commission entitled ETERNAL, in collaboration with the internationally renowned architecture firm Snøhetta, at The Wolfe Center for the Arts, Ohio which consisted of a 10 x 30 meters (28 x 86 feet) mural for the lobby based on her photographic practice on the natural phenomena and spatial properties of light and color, and displays the immensity of the eternal horizon.

Her video work has been shown at Centre Pompidou in Paris, Haus Der Kultur Der Welt, Berlin, Beirut Art Center, Lebanon as part of Rencontres Internationales, The Canadian Museum of Nature, Museum of Modern Art Ukraine in Kiev, Dallas Aurora TX, Video Arte Internacional Buenos Aires and Eva Peron Museum, Argentina, Oslo Screen Festival, and K4 Galleri in Norway, Patioo Monoroom in Spain, A:Code:Nordic DeLights, London, Prospect 1 and 3+ New Orleans, Athr Gallery, Jeddah and Reinventing Asir, part of the Dar Al Hekma University initiative in Saudi Arabia 2014, Abu Dhabi Art Hub, ISEA Dubai 2014 in UAE and in the Kingdom of Bahrain under the patronage of artist Shaikh Rashid bin Khalifa al Khalifa.

Art fairs include Downtown Fair NY, Scope Miami, Scope New York, DIVA Paris, Paris Photo, Paris Fever Photo, Miami Photo, London book Art Fair/Serpentine Gallery, Sao Paolo Contemporary Art Fair, HAF Hong Kong, Seoul Art Fair, KIAF Korea International Art Fair, MiArt Milano Contemporary Art Fair, Zona Maco Mexico City, Art Basel Miami and Pulse Miami. 

In February 2017 Senstad launched a cross cultural women only art platform entitled Time Beyond Place – The Cultural Bridge supported by the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture in Saudi Arabia. The all-women artist project was spearheaded by Senstad in 2016 and supported in part by Office for Contemporary Art Norway and developed to exist as an open collaborative initiative to take on variable forms and collaborators in future formats by local Saudi women artists as autonomous initiatives.  Senstad closed the project after 1 year due to issues that made it impossible to sustain its initial philosophy.

Artist residencies include Marblehouse Projects, Vermont (2016), Abu Dhabi Art Hub as part of ISEA Dubai (2015), Edward James foundation, Las Posas, Mexico (2012).

Senstad’s work is represented in galleries, institutional, corporate and private collections worldwide.