In Silent Transition, a series of monumental pastel paintings on paper, Aanestad explores forms that change from the clearly defined to the unclear and dissolved. The subtle and tactile work represents a still image of a process in transformation.

"My work alternates between the fragile and quiet phases and the more powerful, explosive and expressive ones. And sometimes, in between. I am fascinated by the idea of the infinite and eternal versus volatile and disappearing moments; the vulnerability we have as human beings – how life can remind us of the capricious temperament in nature and the universe, where chaos and ephemerality exist parallel to calm, balance and silence."

- Margrethe Aanestad

Scale is of vital importance in this work. It is taller than the artist herself or an average person. The painting is itself an effect that meets the viewer - an almost overwhelming power. Pastel, a pure pigment and tactile material, becomes very present. The towering scale also accentuates the fragility embodied in the work.

This way, time and the ungraspable, volatile, immaterial quality is an important co-player in the work, where it is encapsulated as a non-constant. This is also a contrast to the time that is encapsulates in the labour of making the work, as very present and physical.

"This is not an image of a rectangle; it is itself a rectangle."