Vanessa Baird: Here we are again, happy as can be, all good pals and jolly good company

In the largest presentation yet of Vanessa Baird’s artistic universe, the acclaimed Norwegian artist is taking over all of Kunsthall Stavanger’s six galleries. Here we are again, happy as can be, all good pals and jolly good company, marks the first time Baird takes over an entire art institution. She has been given free rein to put her artistic stamp on the Kunsthall Stavanger building, allowing her to showcase her multifaceted practice. Also on view are a selection of works by two artists that are close to Baird: Mette Hellenes, her friend and long-time collaborator, and her mother Maureen Baird, who has herself practised as a visual artist.

Baird works primarily with pastels and watercolours, with formats ranging from intimate self-portraits to larger, room-sized pieces. In her works, she references her own lived experiences alongside Scandinavian folklore and literature. Her drawings are often seen as controversial, as they frequently comment on political or social events of contemporary interest. In the works on display at Kunsthall Stavanger, Baird evokes the chaotic, downward spiral of domestic life. A recurring theme of Here we are again, happy as can be, all good pals and jolly good company is the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, and how it has has impacted Baird as her family’s breadwinner and caregiver.

The primary point of focus in the works displayed is the house in Oslo where Baird grew up, and where she still lives along with her three teenaged children and her mother Maureen. The works in the main gallery, presented jointly under the title Behind the picket fence/I’ll be pushing up the daisies (2020–21), encapsulate the everyday chores related to taking care of a household, with Baird’s mother ever-present, and half-clothed teenagers asleep at the kitchen table with iPhones in their hands. Most of these works have been produced during the pandemic, at a time when we have had to withdraw from the world and when many voices have fallen silent or not been heard. The experience of home life has been given new meaning, for better or worse, and the transition has specifically impacted women’s lives. New works by Baird include a series of protest art produced in response to the planned shutdown of Ullevål University Hospital in Oslo, with Baird skewering the high and mighty of the healthcare sector. This is an issue that is highly personal to her, making it natural to include these works alongside those inspired by her everyday domestic life in Oslo.

Upon entering Kunsthall Stavanger, visitors will encounter furniture with paintings by Baird’s mother Maureen Baird. The furniture is in daily use at Vanessa and Maureen’s shared home. Maureen’s imagery includes feminist perspectives and figures in a visual idiom that is clearly reminiscent of her daughter’s art. Maureen’s presence by way of the furniture acts as an extension of the works in the main gallery, where the mother and the home are recurring motifs. Visitors are thereby confronted by the home in a physical sense as soon as they enter the building.

The work A little red coat, a pair of beautiful blue trousers and a green umbrella lost at sea (2020), which fills an entire gallery, comprises fourteen large-scale watercolours on rolls of paper, four metres high and seventeen metres long. The work brings to mind the Japanese artist Hokusai’s ink drawings of mountains and landscapes. Whilst Baird’s work is rooted in the autobiographical, here her scope widens: disturbing scenes of figures drowning in the waves might be informed by Norwegian folklore and maritime legends, but they also refer to the European refugee crisis.

Red Herring – Prednisolon ciclosporin (2014–18), a series of intimate self-portraits made over a period of four years whilst the artist was being treated for a chronic illness are also included in the exhibition. These works communicate the extreme physical and emotional effects the medication had on her: Baird stares at us with a face that is severely red, or pale and virtually colourless, as she tries to convey the idea of her very self ebbing away. Each title registers the different medicines and exact dosages that caused these discomforting side effects, which imbues this series with an almost scientific quality.

Baird’s long-time friend and collaborator Mette Hellenes also presents updates from life during the pandemic through a series of drawings cut out from her diary. These drawings contrast strongly with those by Baird in that they are low-key and fragile, even as they express the pandemic-induced dreariness and anxiety of daily life and isolation. The exhibition features two collaborative projects by Baird and Hellenes. The first is a series of photographs from 2020, capturing the duo as they pose in a variety of situations inspired by amongst other things artworks and personalities from Norwegian culture, such as the artist Torbjørn Rødland and the art collectors Kathrine and Cecilie Fredriksen. Further, the basement gallery will screen two of Baird and Hellenes’ collaborative videos, You bad animal! Can’t you leave me alone just for one minute! and I see an angel. I think it’s you, both from 2004. The videos feature distorted versions of the two friends as they play the roles of absurd and at times insufferable characters, in stages ranging from affected politeness to bodily decadence. The works are infused with humour, and focus on the twin themes of decay and discomfort — an approach we can recognize from the individual practice of both artists.