Join us on an artistic journey through our three floors and see Ervik & Sævik’s art collection. The collection has been purchased by owner Rita Christina Sævik over the past 15 years, and is very varied in its expressions. Here you will find some of the best in Norwegian contemporary art, pop art, ceramics and glass. Sævik has used art as an expression of her personal diary of a life with ups and downs. She is therefore very attached to the pictures, where each picture has its own story. Come and see and let yourself be moved, inspired and provoked. To read our digital guide that takes you through the exhibition, click here
Welcome to crazy motifs, friendly beauty and murmuring discomfort in the exhibition of one of Norway’s few female art collectors. Rita Sævik spent her first months in an orphanage in Ecuador. In Norway, she grew up in a home that both gave her an eye for art, aesthetics and the desire and courage to travel on the sea. Rita became a fisherman, coxswain and owner, mother of two boys and an art collector.
Art has been Rita’s heart medicine, hobby, comfort and source of inspiration. She has mostly bought art when life has been troubled.
Rita Sævik has one of the largest private collections of Magne Furuholmen. An example you first meet outside the door- the brick wall that hides the rubbish bins is decorated with Magne Furuholmen’s recognizable letters and words from a poem he has written for Rita about sea and sky – and the horizon.
Outside, you are also greeted by Bård Breivik’s “Sylphids” on the wall, which resemble fins and which many of those who come here think are fishermen.
In the business building Horisont, there is art from floor to ceiling. Inside, you can start by looking all the way up to the left behind the stairs, towards the purple. It is the first visual art that Rita bought from Magne Furuholmen. It was during a tough period with a lot of work and one of her boys was very ill.
If you look for it, the text reads “Everything is possible” and it hit home. Magne Furuholmen thought she was impulsive, but it went straight to Rita’s heart.
Rita was not concerned with technique and complexity, but made purchases based on what struck at her heart. The expansive, dark cityscape on the large picture wall was painted by Henning Blum. There, it was the mystery and the observant main character that attracted recognition. Many see something frightening in the image, but Rita, who is very outgoing, nevertheless recognizes herself in becoming an observer in new environments and unfamiliar waters.
The contrast is great with “Romsdalshorn” painted by Johan Fredrik Eckersberg. Romsdalshorn is a national treasure and has great significance in our national romantic heritage, but the image also struck a chord with Rita because she was brought up in a home with this type of motif and picture on the walls.
Rita’s art collection is very broad. Further up on the large picture wall you will find several pictures of the Norwegian artist duo Broslo, who are known from major international exhibitions, from TV series and collaboration with Gucci. Rita fell for the rough, daring and energizing style.
The blue torso is a sculpture made by Nico Widerberg. It was bought three years before the house here was finished and had been stored in a boat house waiting to be moved into its current home.
Stupedama is also from Nico Widerberg.
It was first placed standing in a park and then the artist used a saw to take off the foot and transformed it so that the diver can hang in the air here on the stairs.
If you go a little further into the restaurant, you will be greeted by a picture-wall with a face that follows you with its eyes wherever you are in the restaurant. The picture was painted by Arnold Dahlslett together with his son Stian Dahlsett, and it was worked on for over ten years in a kind of three-layer technique.
Next to it are ceramics by Kjell Erik Killi-Olsen. Rita hunted for Bård Breivik at an auction, but lost. Then this came up at the auction and the youngest son who was with her at the auction, made an offer. Rita used to laugh and say when she discovered it, she thought it was really ugly, but her son loved it. So now it hangs there.
And at a glance here, you can see many of the great Norwegian contemporary artists. Arnold Dahlset, Kjell Erik Killi-Olsen, here is Bjarne Melgaard in the skull, top left behind the serving counter there is Ørnulf Opdahl, and on the table is the ‘deturfish’ made by Nico Widerberg for Horisont when he exhibited here.
In the small shelves by the window you will find some of the “small” treasures in the exhibition. Nils Aa’s sculpture, for example, and impulsively bought ceramics from a trip to Tromsø brought home in hand luggage.
Lofoten and Henningsvær have a caviar factory, a source of inspiration for Rita, a place with modern art where no one would think that someone could run an art gallery. An example of Ryszard Warsinski can be found in the interior of the restaurant, a work of art that Rita was able to buy from the owner of the caviar factory’s private collection, Rolf Hoff.
The blue picture on the wall behind the stairs was painted by Lars Løken. It is the image that most locals want to buy. Perhaps they recognize themselves in playing on the stones at the water’s edge? Rita saw it for the first time in a gallery in Grimstad and fell for the light which was accentuated by completely dark gallery walls. Here, too, the painting shines, and especially when it is dark outside.
At the top of the stairs you see a large, gray picture with a colourful centre. It is made by Javier Barrios is a Guatemalan-Norwegian artist based in New York. Rita first got to experience his work at Flø and this picture here has been with her for many years. One of the things that appealed were the red rose petals which remind Rita of her Mum who has always had her garden roses as a great interest and joy.
On the second floor are a number of Magne Furuholmen’s jars. Here is also more of Broslo as the dinosaur picture with a message for both teenagers and adults that we must be critical of everything we take in from the screens – and a reminder that humans are dying out.
If you walk between the jars and the dinosaur picture, you will come to a meeting room on the left. Inside you will find, for example, a picture of a bird on a rhinoceros. It reminds Rita of the struggle to raise the Horisont building. A period where she had go many rounds and face many challenges.
She is also fond of the refugee picture. And not least, the large landscape picture by Marius Moe. It was bought during a hectic period in Rita’s life. She says that she was allowed to borrow a chair in the gallery and just sat and looked at it. The picture gives her peace and tranquillity and before it came here she had it hanging in front of her desk for four years.
Go up the stairs to the third floor. In the stairwell you will find several works of art by Loise Maagard. Even with all the colours, they fill Rita with ease. The pictures here were bought in different contexts and different periods, yet connect fully and unify when presented together.
This is also something Rita “just found” in Skagen, cycling away and there a pop-up gallery appeared with these.
And along with all these colours we have more of Broslo, a four-faced sculpture that symbolizes that we all have many faces depending on our role.
Back on the second floor, you can find the office premises of Rita and Ervik & Sævik. In the break room, there is room for art with both the cruel and the beautiful.
Here there is art from Bjarne Melgaard who challenges, and when we get to know the artist behind it and his story, we see that it is painted with rage. Here there is also the art of Damien Hirst who, among other things, is known for creating the world’s most expensive art with diamond skulls before Simon Wågsholm.
Rita dropped by the exhibition at KHÅK in Ålesund – and stayed there. She says it is perhaps the best exhibition she has ever been to, in addition to the fact that the pictures resonated with her during a period when she was tired and felt alone in the struggle to get this house built here.
On the next wall there is art that evokes warm memories. St. Kilda is a tiny and remote island group west of Scotland, west of the Hebrides and far out into the sea. Here, Rita sailed past many times, often during Easter, with her father on her way to and from blue whiting fishing. She found the picture in a gallery in the Faroe Islands and it sent her straight back to Easter celebrations in the wheelhouse with the Easter Sunday service on the radio.
Across the hall are some of the latest works of art displayed here. Ceramics by Louise Maargaard, whose colourful pictures are viewed upstairs, Javier Barrio and here is Magne Furuholmen, whom she couldn’t let leave and go back when he had an exhibition here.
And then the Skagen painters Ancher and Krøyer. They are not originals, they are almost impossible to buy. Also, if they had have been originals because of their price, they would have been better secured here than these are!
They are however here as a sign of Rita’s fondness for Skagen and as an example of how taste and interest expand in the arts.
Inside you see another example of art bought with heart and emotion. Rita was supposed to meet an offshore company in Aberdeen. She was in the city for the first time and says herself that she is not very good in English. Then she saw this 3D image in the window of a gallery, and perhaps she found Britain just as confusing and attractive as found in this image?
Now you have been able to go through the private art collection of Rita Sævik. These are pictures that she loves and that are valuable to her, but the joy and value becomes greater when she gets to share them with more people. She exhibits because she hopes you will find some of the joy she herself has experienced with each individual image and hopes that it can be a contribution to you on your journey.
Thank you for wanting to see and experience.
