Gjertrud Hals’ upbringing on the little island of Finnøya is profoundly anchored in her art, and her relationship to the region’s nature and culture is deep and complex. Gjertrud Hals’ focuses on natural fibres that she transforms through various techniques including weaving, knitting, casting, spraying and cutting. The high level of craftsmanship and the role of nature in Gjertrud Hals’ work should be seen in the light of her frequent travels to Japan and in the inspiration drawn from Zen Buddhism. Shintoism, Japan’s old nature-worshipping religion, is another important key to understanding the animistic dimension of her work.

Born in 1948 on the northwest coast of Norway, Gjertrud Hals is considered as an important pioneer in the field of fibre art. She has been one of the redefining figures by liberating textile art from the loom and displaying it in space as three-dimensional sculpture. Her international breakthrough came in the mid-1980’s with LAVA, a series of large urns made of cotton and flax pulp that marked her transition from textile to sculptural fibre art. In 1987, she was granted First Prize in the Metro Arts International Art Competition in New York, followed by the Grand Prix in the Kyoto International Textile Competition in 1989. Her works have been acquired by private and public collections, such as the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, the Museum of Contemporary Crafts in New York, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Lausanne and the Bellerive Museum in Zürich.