Nanna Riis Andersen & Daniela Bergschneider
14 Aug 2026 – 26 Sep 2026
Formation Gallery is pleased to present "Skin, Shape, Shelter", a duo exhibition by Danish artist Nanna Riis Andersen and German-born, Bergen-based artist Daniela Bergschneider. Working across painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics and textiles, the two artists explore the body not as a fixed form, but as something shaped through continuous processes of growth, adaptation and change. Their works investigate the shifting boundaries between interior and exterior, protection and exposure, solidity and fragility.
The exhibition unfolds as an investigation into skin—not simply as a biological surface, but as a membrane: a threshold where matter meets the world. Skin protects, contains and connects. It records time, responds to touch and bears the traces of transformation. Throughout *Skin, Shape, Shelter*, form is understood as something living rather than fixed. Shapes expand, contract, unfold and dissolve, suggesting that identity itself is continuously negotiated through its relationship with the world around it.
Although working in distinct materials and media, Riis Andersen and Bergschneider share a fascination with organic structures and the invisible systems that shape both bodies and landscapes. Their works move fluidly between the microscopic and the monumental, between the cellular and the cosmic, evoking forms that seem at once biological, geological and otherworldly. Shells, membranes, skeletal structures, coral formations and botanical growth emerge only to dissolve again into abstraction, inviting viewers into a space where recognition remains deliberately unstable.
Daniela Bergschneider constructs her sculptures through a meticulous dialogue between porcelain and hand-dyed translucent nylon. Small hand-built ceramic modules are individually tied into textile membranes, gradually forming larger sculptural organisms that appear simultaneously fragile and resilient. The porcelain functions as an internal skeleton, while the stretched nylon becomes a skin—holding, protecting and binding the forms together. The resulting sculptures seem suspended between expansion and contraction, as though quietly breathing. Familiar materials are transformed into unfamiliar presences, creating what Bergschneider describes as "visual tactility": works that invite not only the gaze but also an embodied, almost visceral response.
Nanna Riis Andersen's paintings similarly inhabit a state of perpetual becoming. Working on silk and paper canvas, she builds luminous surfaces through countless layers of acrylic, ink, coloured pencil and water, allowing forms to emerge gradually from within the material itself. Fragments recalling shells, vertebrae, marine organisms and botanical growth appear and dissolve across translucent fields of colour without ever settling into fixed representation. Recurring spiral forms become a central motif throughout the exhibition. Emerging from the abstract language of the paintings themselves, they evoke shells and protective dwellings as readily as they suggest galaxies, currents of water or fields of energy. The spiral becomes both image and structure—a movement that gathers seemingly chaotic energies into form while remaining open to continual change. Shelter, here, is understood not as enclosure, but as a condition that allows transformation to unfold.
Together, the works propose a world in which growth is inseparable from vulnerability. Shelter is never understood as permanence, but as a temporary condition—a fragile architecture that enables change. Bergschneider's textile membranes stretch around ceramic skeletons just as Riis Andersen's translucent layers of colour gather around shifting forms. Material itself becomes an active language throughout the exhibition. The absorbency of paper, the transparency of silk, the density of porcelain and the elasticity of nylon are not simply carriers of form but participants in its making. Rather than depicting bodies, both artists investigate the processes through which forms come into being: expansion and contraction, accumulation and erosion, emergence and disappearance.
The exhibition resists simple distinctions between abstraction and figuration. Instead, both artists operate within a visual language where recognisable forms continuously dissolve into material, gesture and rhythm. Their works remain open, inviting multiple readings while insisting on the physical experience of looking. Surface becomes depth, softness suggests strength, and fragility reveals its own resilience.
"Skin, Shape, Shelter" ultimately asks how forms come into being—how bodies, landscapes and identities are continually shaped through processes of protection, exposure and change. It is an exhibition about the quiet intelligence of organic systems, the beauty of structures that remain unfinished, and the delicate balance between holding together and letting go.
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About Nanna Riis Andersen
Nanna Riis Andersen (b. 1985, Denmark) works with painting, drawing and sculpture, exploring the relationship between body, landscape and transformation. Moving between abstraction and figuration, her works evoke organic structures that appear simultaneously familiar and elusive. Through layered surfaces and tactile materials such as paper, silk and pigment, she creates immersive visual spaces where form is constantly emerging, dissolving and reforming.
Riis Andersen graduated from the Jutland Art Academy in 2012 and has exhibited extensively in Denmark and internationally. Recent exhibitions include "Spændinger" at Galleri Lene Bilgrav (2026), "Sti Vild Sti" at Formation Gallery (2024), "Det Dobbeltsidede Hjerte" (2024) and "Earthenware" (2022) at Galleri Lene Bilgrav. She has also exhibited at Den Frie Udstillingsbygning, Møstings Hus and as part of the JCE Biennale in Denmark, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. She received Sven Hols' Grant in 2020, the Hielmstierne-Rosencroneske Foundation's Working Grant in 2024 and a grant from Valbyfonden in 2026.
About Daniela Bergschneider
Daniela Bergschneider (b. 1986, Germany) creates sculptural works that combine porcelain and textiles into hybrid forms suspended between the organic and the imagined. Working with hand-built porcelain elements bound together by translucent nylon, she investigates material transformation, tactile perception and the relationship between inner structure and outer skin.
Bergschneider graduated with an MFA from the Faculty of Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen in 2020. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including at KODE Museum (Bergen), Hiro Hiro Art Space (Taipei), Open M Art Fair (Hangzhou), Galleri Format (Oslo), Fiskars Village Art & Design Biennale (Finland), Officinet (Copenhagen) and SOFT Galleri (Oslo). Her works are held in the collections of the National Museum of Norway, KODE Museum, Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum, the Equinor Art Collection and the City of Gothenburg. In 2024 she received a ten-year working grant from the Norwegian Arts Council.
