Biography

Ellen Karin Maehlum lives and works in Oslo, Norway. Educated at Oslo Academy of the Arts (KHiO), Bergen Academy of Art and Design (KHiB) and at Royal Institute of Art (KKH) in Stockholm. She has held a number of exhibitions in Norway and abroad. Her work has been acquired by public collections, including The National Gallery in Oslo, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo and the Arts Council of Norway. Mæhlum has collaborated with the Centre of Physics of Geological Processes (PGP) at the University of Oslo since 2003 and with the Marine Microbiology Research Group from the University of Bergen since 2008. www.ellenkarin.no

Open Folio

Plankton Portraits
The silkscreen series “Plankton Portraits” is based on four groups of single-celled organisms that are found in the waters close to the surface. They have very intricate architectural structures and they have a life cycle of only a few days. The visual material, upon which these prints are based, consists of observations made by microbiologists from the University of Bergen, using optical and electron microscopy. The initial contact with the research group was made on Svalbard. The aim in this work is to make visible to the public something that is normally both invisible and inaccessible in the microbial marine universe.

With support from ERC Advanced Grant project MINOS at University of Bergen.