Excerpts from reviews
LISBETH SKREGLID (UIA) IN HER OPENING SPEECH OF THE EXHIBITION “IRR.GRØNN!” IN LILLESAND KUNSTFORENING 21.03.2026, WITH SOLFRID LINDBLOM, SIGVE KNUTSON AND BARBRO RAEN THOMASSEN
”The three artists, in their own ways, deal with a preparedness we rarely talk about: The aesthetic preparedness. This is a preparedness which is not about preparing for crises, but about enduring the world as it happens. Which gives us a space to think slowly when everything else is going fast.”
Nanna Hagedorn Olsen, Kunstavisen.no, 6.6.2024
“In a circle on the lawn lie nine sculptures carved in granite, entitled S for Seeds and Survival. The massive and hard material is given its shape from various seeds from weeds, where Barbro Raen Thomassen makes the almost invisible become visible. The classic material offers a weight and a raison d’être which they do not possess in their natural form, and forces us to reconsider the otherwise not wanted plants and award them due respect.”
Marie Skretting, from the book “Kunstsamlingen”, UIS 2023
“Stone and outdoor sculpture go hand in glove. This ambivalence between form and motif links the work to a modern tradition challenging our expectations as to what a high-value object is.”
Frida Forsgren, Fædrelandsvennen 12.5.2022
“The artist has from her ecological and sustainable perspective worked for years with close readings of the most tiny and vulnerable elements in nature: seeds. It is very much worth while seeing this exhibition which suits our time as well as the season.”
Grace Tabea Tenga, Billedkunst No. 3, 2020
“S for Seeds and Survival (II) is surprisingly carved in Carrara marble, but without the characteristic splendour and luxury we associate with this marble. The artist says that ‘to carve a seed capsule in stone implies a paradox: The little and light becomes massive, the organic turns inorganic, the ephemeral and vulnerable solid.'”
Frantzsen&Mjanger, Instagram Norwegian Crafts, #dailycraftpick 16.07.2020
“Raen Thomassen’s art sets us in an existential mode for re-searching – ‘see again’ – our inner and outer landscapes.”
Kjetil Røed, Vårt Land 11.9.2019
“Barbro Raen Thomassen grinds forth stones reminding us of disconnected body parts. It might seem brutal, but is carefully and poetically done.”
Frida Forsgren, Fædrelandsvennen 4.6.2019
“The sculpture is poetic and assured and supplies the landscape with a gentler quality.”
Yi Ciyuan, online Chinese Art Media for Mobile Phone, Beijing 25.5.2019
“One of the five most important exhibitions in China right now.”
Astrid Hygen Meyer, Klassekampen 26.9.2015
“In Barbro Raen Thomassen’s drawings the meticulous competes with the high-mettled and raw.”
Nina Hobolth, Kunsthal Nord, Aalborg 2014
“With a perfectionist’s feeling for the stone’s hide, Barbro Raen Thomassen has honed and polished her sculptures until they reflect the surrounding light and emerge with a three dimensional force.”
Anders Ørom, Kunsthal Nord, Aalborg 2014
“A possible common denominator for these works is the doubleness of meanings, the tension between the unexpected and disquieting on one hand, and on the other hand the aesthetic expression evoking pleasure.”
Nina Hobolth, on the exhibition Plantasi, Kirsten Kjærs Museum 2012
“Barbro’s delicate plant drawings carry further the tradition of botanical science and they make themselves felt by creating immediacy, holding on to the sense of a temporal dimension: the living, the dead, the sustained and the remembered.”
Else-Brit Kroneberg, Curator at Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Fra haug ok heidni No. 3, 2012
“Esthetically the expression is beautiful in itself, but it also points outwards towards something else that we cannot see – something that concerns existential questions and the uncertainties and possibilities of life itself.”
Paal-Helge Haugen, in the book Av Aske, Entos, Kristiansand 2009
“Barbro Raen Thomassen has achieved the most difficult of all: Working in the visible in order to give the invisible a space to appear in.”
Wera Sæther, on From Ash 2009
“Eco-art at its most veracious.”
Olav Egil Aune, Arts Editor, Vårt Land 24.11.2007
“There is noise, and we long for quiet. The artist Barbro Raen Thomassen knows this; she feels it in her body. And what she creates we can stand before in stillness.”
Dietlinde Schirmacher, Berlin-Köpenick, 4.03.2005
“Seed as a concentrate: That out of something hardly visible can emerge something so great, so mighty. The exhibition is sparse in its form. Through the great calm of its presentation there open up vast rooms for thought. What more can an exhibition achieve?”
Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey, letter 26.06.2001
“It is a powerful piece, like the earth’s navel and we congratulate you.”
Arne Thomassen, Bohusläningen, Sweden, 13.04.2000
“Her pictures could be many thousands of years old and yet they should retain their significance into the distant future. This is an example of the innate ability of art to defy time.”
Helge Torvund, Stavanger Aftenblad, 18.04.1999
“From a jet black, light-absorbing base appear signs like glowing copper and silver. They speak to us. Not through letters and words, but through traces in time.”
Péter Molnár, 4th International Biennial of Sculptor’s Drawing, Budapest 1996
“Barbro Raen Thomassen’s works are radiating some refined light and thousand years of sorrow.”
Arild Borgen, Fædrelandsvennen, 07.07.1995
“Quiet, introspective art is her trademark. A vibrating fingertip sensuality…”
Mette Fastrup, Thisted Dagblad, DK, 10.04.1995
“Our guest Barbro Raen Thomassen from Norway catches our eye immediately with her sculptures by the entrance, not through colours and blatant symbolism, but with a collection of torsos of welcome simplicity.”
Gunvald Opstad, Klassekampen, 11.07.1995
“Through the simplest of means, three human torsos spread across the broken stonefloor, the artist from Lillesand has succeeded in creating a strong and importunate picture of the war’s biggest cruelties.”