INGRID TOOGOOD
Pretending to Stay Calm
22.01 - 21.02.26
ISCA Gallery is pleased to present Pretending to Stay Calm, a solo exhibition by Ingrid Toogood. This marks Toogood’s second solo exhibition at the gallery and features a new body of work consisting of diamond-shaped paintings, works on paper, and new mirror-based works.
We enter the world with a scream. Though it fades from hearing, it never fully disappears; it lingers within us as a constant echo. At the same time, we learn to present ourselves as composed and controlled, concealing inner turmoil behind a restrained façade. The angular canvases and trembling brushstrokes in Toogood’s paintings give form to this unrest. Like fissures or openings, the works cry out through their intense colors.
In Pretending to Stay Calm, Toogood continues her painterly investigation of the relationship between exterior and interior—between façade and reverse. These questions have long been central to her practice: what is revealed, and what is concealed? Her paintings and installations do not strive for perfection, yet they often appear to hold a sense of it. On closer inspection, however, these illusions fracture, revealing vulnerability, tension, and instability beneath the surface.
Ingrid Toogood (b. 1976) graduated from the Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) in 2002. She works across painting, sculpture, installation, and performance. Her artistic language is characterized by the interplay between painterly illusion and sculptural strategies, incorporating colorful trompe l’oeil effects, carved surfaces, and mirrors. Thematically, her work revolves around perception—what we see and what we believe we see. Toogood seeks to capture the fleeting and to give form to something that has disappeared, or perhaps never existed at all: a longing for the unknown and the lost.
Recent solo exhibitions include Livet stormar og strøymer, Bryne Art Association (2025); Yesterday in My Pocket, LNM (2024); The Four Chambers, Tou (2023); Spending Time with My Cat, ISCA Gallery (2021); Brother and Sister, KinoKino (2020); Brist, Elephant Art Gallery (2018); and You Are Beautiful. You Are Alone, Kristiansand Art Gallery (2015). She also participated in the opening exhibition of the National Museum in 2022 with the work I Longed for It. In 2023, Toogood realized two large-scale outdoor public art projects at Varmen and Schancheholen Fire Station in Stavanger. Her works are held in public collections including the National Museum, Oslo Municipality Art Collection, Norges Bank, Stavanger Art Museum, and the University of Oslo.
LIST OF WORKS
