Artist Constance Tenvik has built a career creating complex mystical puzzles

Constance Tenvik ’s artistic practice encompasses multiple avenues of expression. Wary of labels generally, and generously attributed to artists, I do however, need to start somewhere. This artist is best described as a painter, filmmaker, performance artist, a designer and sometimes curator, although I am sure I have missed a few titles.

Tenvik – who has an upcoming solo exhibition at Stockholm’s Loyal Gallery this month – is a nomad, a constant traveller; often finding herself at artist residencies in new countries every other year, even every couple of months. We’re able to follow her endeavours on social media as she absorbs her surroundings, painting, creating work in new locations.

Tenvik also seems to curate each environment she descends upon. Each new room or studio she shares in pictures, appears as an extension of her paintings, part of some larger realm within her artistic practice. She manages to make travel, during the height of a pandemic, look safe and seamless. I am confident she thoroughly researches and engages in her temporary domiciles, but at the same time, she makes it look effortless.

"I have definitely set up studios in a lot of different places, and I like to respond to new surroundings. It’s almost as if each exhibition feels like a new chapter of my life,” Tenvik says. It’s fascinating how each new milieu – a residency or exhibition space, say – makes a significant impact. “They are more prevalent than my birthdays in a way; they are chapters. You can also see in my portraits. It’s very clear when I am in Berlin and when I am in Paris. Capturing all these different details and fashion, patterns and habits.”

Tenvik’s wanderlust started at an early age. She was born in London, grew up in Norway, and travelled extensively with her family to far-flung places, including Thailand. When her secondary education concluded, she received a scholarship to study in Georgia, USA. I ask Tenvik about her journey to become an artist. “I was supposed to study journalism and philosophy but ended up living in the art department, and after that, I never turned back.”

She holds an undergraduate degree from Oslo Art Academy and an MFA from Yale. “Those schools are polar opposites,” she says. “One is free. One put me in a lot of debt. One is more focused on the Norwegian art system, the other is more international, more tuned in to teaching, but also about the scene in New York; it’s more market-driven. I got access to all the classes at Yale, from architecture to art history.”

With everything available to her during her graduate degree, including the vast libraries and enormous resources of the famous college, I wondered what impact this had on her. “I could sit there, you know, and really touch old tarot cards, a text from the Middle Ages or Gertrude Stein’s actual letters,” Tenvik explains. “I feel like I’ve been building this other world from an early stage. I’ve always been really interested in imagining alternative realities and escaping into different narratives of sorts.”

My introduction to Tenvik was in 2019, when she curated a beautiful group exhibition, A Seeds Star, at the Loyal Gallery. She delicately assembled a group of eclectic artists who expressed a sense of playfulness and dreaminess, not far from her own artistic practice. Despite being her curatorial debut, its impact was well rounded and succinct. I was also intrigued; at the time, I heard that during her sojourn in Stockholm Tenvik met people for lunch in the centre of the city at the slightly hip, always very busy restaurant, Riche, and painted their portrait.

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I later viewed several of these portraits: colourful, jovial depictions of her brief but meaningful encounters. When I asked Tenvik about the paintings, she candidly describes these lunch sessions as introductions. “I did several portraits with people I didn’t know. Some people spark my interest. I feel very lucky to be able to get a bit closer to people that fascinate me. Other things happen when you meet, you share food and stories, it’s quite intimate.”

These chance meetings have become a very important part of her practice, from taking a snapshot of a person to use at a later stage, to live painting sessions. “I have even dragged a person from the dance floor at [famed Berlin nightclub] Berghain to my studio. Then there are these sessions, eating lunch, painting live in a restaurant. By now, I have gotten so used to this situation that I can adapt it into a lot of different scenarios. It’s definitely become one of those ‘art and life blurring’ moments,” she tells me, smiling.

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It’s evident that the various cities Tenvik mentions hold deep meaning for her, influencing her both personally and artistically. “Berlin has become very special to me because of the depth of my friendships there. I find it to be a very generous place, where you can be who you truly are.” These various locations influence her, widening a net of friends and inspiration. “I went to Athens for an exhibition last year, and I really love being so close to the ancient Greek culture, which actually tends to come into my work, bringing mythology into my practice.”

I press Tenvik on other places that inspire her. “It’s very important to find places where one can imagine freedom. London is up there. New York, that was the first place I lived after graduating. I have a lot of my peers there and I love the tempo. People are very honest about what they are into. It’s a very stimulating place, it matches my energy.”

Early on in her career, Tenvik created major installations. These large sculptural works explored all types of material, including steel and fabric. “I was at the sculpture department at Yale, and sometimes I would get criticised for going in between the 2D and the 3D, the flat [painting] and the sculptural, but actually I think it’s a strength to move between these things,” she says.

Tenvik is incredibly expressive when it comes to fashion, something visible in both her sculpture and painting. “I have worked a lot with these amazing weavers both in Norway and Italy,” she explains. “And there too you can sit between the sculptural and the pattern, or the flat aspect of my artistic practice. I am even more alert if I see a fascinating fabric." Fashion and the love of textiles has never been far away from her upbringing. One of Tenvik’s grand mothers ran a shoe store, her aunt worked for Vogue in the 1990s, and her great grandmother claimed to have introduced the bikini to Norway.

“I have grown up with a sustainable way of thinking, taking care of things and paying attention to how things are made. Developing fabrics has been a way to understand how things are made and constructed. Sewing and modifying my clothes is an extension of me. In my early videos, I would also make the costumes myself, and then it started to be a way to find the look of each performance.”

Fascinated with tailoring, Tenvik often makes one-of-a-kind fabrics and designs prints. She’ll create custom suits for special occasions, such as an exhibition opening, or simply to match the mood of a new location. It is almost as if she is continuously creating extensions of herself; fusing the neighbouring interior into her work, making sure everything she touches speaks to something larger she is creating, beyond the physical paintings - an entire universe.

Long after our initial interview, Tenvik continued to share, sending me texts, Instagram DMs and emails of suits and fabrics she has made. With images of ensembles aptly named ‘The Ghost Suit’ (an immaculate white three-piece suit, made with patterned fabric designed by Tenvik) and ‘The suit I have matching bedding for,’ I was instantly hungry for more. Made in 2018, one of her fabrics, a jacquard tapestry named ‘The Folds of the Universe’, is utterly mesmerising, along with an incredible silk shirt playfully titled ‘Sunny Side Up Shirt.’

Having incorporated fashion and textiles into her practice early on, she recently collaborated with the carpet company Layered, creating limited-edition flooring. “Once I got the hang of developing my own expression, I really enjoyed being a bit bold,” she says. The carpet design, with these big noses, long staring eyes and vivid colours is striking. “I like lifting up the grotesque to an extent. I enjoy the combination of zooming out and having an overview but at the same time being extremely interested in detail.”

This goes beyond creative collaborations, touching all areas of her artistry. “There will always be details to find and various layers to discover,” she says. “So, even if my work sometimes can be read as Pop at first glance, you can find more meaning.” I am curious how all these various collaborations and projects feed into her larger vision. Tenvik explains: “I feel my work is my universe, so one thing will benefit the other thing in a way and feed the other.”

Several artists inspire Tenvik, from Moki Cherry and Niki de Saint Phalle to Vasilij Kandinsky and Otto Dix; “artists that strongly believe in their own imagination and their own world,” she says. “I remember one of my first meetings with contemporary art was seeing Mathew Barney’s work The Cremaster Cycle as a 13-year-old and already then, I enjoyed it and wanted to be a part of that.”

Beyond artists, directors such as Alejandro Jodorowsky and Frederico Fellini are inspirational figures, in addition to writers and poets, including Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde and even Roald Dahl. It’s easy to understand how these myriad of cultural heavyweights inspire her; she has a multitude of interests and is eager to experiment artistically.

When delving into Tenvik’s work, I am struck by the idea that underneath all the colour and spirit lies an undercurrent of incredible sincerity and seriousness. Matching work that expresses a true sense of joie de vivre is an artistic practice based in study. Beyond her great prowess for academia, literature, and film, Tenvik shares how she makes extensive mind maps, and constantly takes notes, creating an entire catalogue of ideas. Her work is layered in complex mystical puzzles, waiting to be deciphered.

At this stage, it’s important to note that I am mildly obsessed with Tenvik’s online persona. She dances, often to music, in different outfits with accompanying headgear. It’s performance art, but it’s also fun and lighthearted. Although the two aren’t mutually exclusive by any means, I want to know if she’s merely blowing off steam or if this is part of her artistic practice?

Tenvik pauses. “It’s definitely an extension of who I am and what I do. I have a natural theatricality and performative side, so it kind of seeps into everything, but the dance videos are not calculated at all. The pandemic made me dare myself a bit. I wasn’t seeing so many people, so I just started doing that. A lot of it is improvised, and they’ve ended up being more pop ular than some of my real work. So, those films are hopefully giving off some uplifting energy.”

Eagerly, I tell her how all this video material might be the foundation of a new body of work sometime soon. Tenvik muses: “You know, now that I have done a substantial amount of them, it would be quite interesting to see if I could work with a videographer and make more movement-related and video works as well. I would be super interested in that.”