No One Sees a Flower, really

No One Sees a Flower, really Ragnhild Nes (NO) & Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (NL)

Galleri Duer, Oslo, Norway | 05.09.25-28.09.25

No One Sees a Flower, really marks the first duo exhibition by Ragnhild Nes (NO) and Lisette van Hoogenhuyze (NL), whose artistic friendship began while sharing a studio in Lisbon. Since then, their dialogue has unfolded through letters, conversations, and travels; most recently to Sicily, where they sketched volcanoes and wandered through landscapes soaking in sunlight and myth.

Both artists work through layered practices in which writing, colour, and environment shape what takes form on the blank surface. Nes moves between abstract painting, drawing, and sculpture, while van Hoogenhuyze approaches figuration through drawing, textiles, ceramics, and more.

Despite differences in form, their works share a sensitivity to process, art historical references, and the intertwined languages of words and colour.

The exhibition title echoes this shared attention: a wish to slow down and notice what emerges when we truly look. It borrows from Georgia O’Keeffe’s reflection: “Nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small. It takes time, and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.”

Ragnhild Nes (b. 1993) is a Norwegian visual artist working in painting, drawing, and sculpture. Her work unfolds through abstraction, where colour, form, and light are layered with influences from her surroundings, cultural encounters, myths, and art historical references. Nes explores how experience, memory, and history can be transformed into compositions that are both tactile and poetic.

Writing is integral to her process: each work begins with words on the blank surface. Sometimes they are hidden beneath layers of paint, like traces of memory, while at other times they resurface in titles, colours, structures, or as stitched sentences across the canvas. In this way, language becomes inseparable from the visual, creating works where meaning emerges gradually through depth and layering.

Nes has exhibited in Norway and internationally, among other a solo show at SARP Gallery, Italy (2022), and Tableau, Copenhagen (2024).

Lisette van Hoogenhuyze is a multimedia artist who was living and working between Lisbon and Amsterdam for the last four years. Recently she moved back to the Hague (NL). 

Her paintings, sculptures and textile installations merge feminine figures, natural motifs and ageless symbols in a critical examination of identity, collective memory and language. As an avid traveler, Lisette has developed an interest in the habits and behaviours of different cultures, having found a unified longing for belonging in the people she met during her journeys. 

Her colourful and layered pieces take audiences on a trip across different contemporary (sub)cultures, defying habitual representations of femininity and nature in an ironic ode to rebellion and joy. Ancient beasts, rituals and present-day references fill her production, appearing in both abstract and figurative forms that similarly defy static parameters of normativity.

Vernissage: Friday, September 5th - 17:00 - Osterhaus gate 21, Oslo, Norway