Laura Gaiger “Mareel Diver”
12.12.2025 - 10.01.2026
Vernissage 12.12.2025 6 pm - 9 pm
Mikey Laundry Art Garden (MLAG)
Halfdan Kjerulfs Gate 4, 5017 Bergen
The Tomb of the Diver is an early fresco work, from 500BCE, in Paestum, Italy. The enduring mystery of the painted tomb is its ceiling, where the fresco painting depicts a young man diving into waves from a ladder like structure. He is alone, suspended in mid-leap, wide eyed and decisive, in contrast to the reclining groups of friends painted on the walls below. The painting is a mystery; nobody knows why there is a painting of a diver on the ceiling of a tomb containing a young corpse. The Ancient Greeks related diving to death, to the unknown, and especially to passionate losses, so the diver has often been seen as a representation of that last spectacular leap into the void.
“I am currently working on a series of fragmented works which respond to the Tomb of the Diver and its place in collective imagination. I am weaving this into my own symbolism around the sea and using material to both connect to and push away from the ancient fresco. I work in buon fresco, or kalkmaleri, a material used for tens of thousands of years in architecture and art. Its stability and permanence - fresco is paint turned to stone - is why the Tomb of the Diver survives. I choose ultramodern pigments, however, such as fluorescent greens which evoke the transient underwater light of noctiluca bioluminescence, or morild. Known as mareel in Shetland, morild in Norway and nocticula scintillans universally, these small creatures flash violently green and blue when agitated by a wave, a boat, or anything else in the water. Last summer they came further north than usual and surrounded the harbour in Solheimsviken, Bergen, a thick orange soup by day and an otherworldly radiance by night. The bioluminescence made me cry. It was so effortless and so spectacular, and watching it was more satisfying than looking at anything I’ve ever made in the studio. I didn’t dive into it, but I wish I had done, and I hope one day it will return so that I can. In the meantime I am making frescoes, on terracotta fragments, imagining a spectacular dive into the mareel”. - Laura Gaiger
Supported by Kulturdirektoratet and Bergen Kommune
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