Format at Market Art Fair 2026

23 - 26 April 2026

Format’s presentation at Market Art Fair 2026 consists of three well established artists within the crafts field in Norway and Sweden; textile artist Kari Dyrdal, glass artist Kirsten Vikingstad Hermansson and ceramic artists Pauliina Pöllänen. Their work varies in techniques, materials and artistic approach, and they distinguish themselves with innovative and impressive work. The carefully selected artists reflect the different tendencies within the unique and celebrated Nordic craft scene. These are artists with high quality unique pieces with a striking artistic expression.

Kari Dyrdal is a textile artist known for monumental tapestries that exhibit a dual mastery of the cultural tradition of hand weaving alongside an intricately researched digital production. Dyrdal’s practice involves a deep investigation of memory, incorporating pattern, repetition, and structure as expressions of her ideas on aesthetics and cultural heritage. Working from her personal photography, Dyrdal considers the use of recognizable images as essential to her technique; expanding the potential of textile to communicate, she transforms her photography within the digital loom to create a juxtaposition between pictorial representation and abstraction. Dyrdal's textile works approach grand, architectural scale, and through her meticulous and premeditated digital process and aesthetic—the tightly packed pixels and finetuned mechanized control of weaving—an intimacy emerges, a humanity that withstands and is heightened by the technological process.

Kari Drydal (b. 1952, Norway) serves as a professor in the Faculty of Art, Music, and Design at the University of Bergen. She holds a degree in Textile Art from Bergens Kunsthåndverksskole (1977) and completed her postgraduate studies at the Croydon College of Art and Technology in London (1978). Her work has been exhibited at the National Museum in Oslo, KODE in Bergen, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.

Kirsten Vikingstad Hermansson is a Norwegian glass artist who lives in Jämshög, Sweden. Her sculptural glass works have a powerful presence and are characterised by their bold colour combinations. The process often starts with a kiln casting, where different opaque colours are fused into a solid form. Once cooled and removed from the mould, the piece is reworked by sawing, polishing and grinding, before being reheated and hot-assembled on a glassmaking bench. Using this technique, Hermansson creates dynamic abstract sculptures that reinterpret classic glassmaking techniques. Her works are inspired by reflections on the concepts of power and ownership, often symbolised by architectural elements such as the tower or the ring. For a long time, cut crystal, particularly that produced by the Orrefors glassworks, was a jewel in the crown of Swedish glass work. Sparkling and crystal clear, these items were iconic export products that contributed to the country’s renown for glassware. Hermansson reflects this tradition but with a contemporary brutality: her works are rugged, opaque, bold and lacking the brilliance traditionally associated with crystal.

Kirsten Vikingstad Hermansson (b. 1988, Norway) studied at the National School of Glass in Orrefors, the Royal Danish Academy of Design in Bornholm, as well as at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. For eight years, she codirected the Formbar studio in Haugesund (Norway) with two glassmaking colleagues. She now devotes herself full time to her artistic career, which also includes site-specific installations for public spaces. She has exhibited in Scandinavia, the UK, Germany and Canada, and her works have been acquired by national institutions such as KODE in Bergen and the National Museum in Oslo.

Pauliina Pöllänen’s new works draw upon from the lineage of figurative sculpture through fragmented representation of the human body and the expressive potential of the material. Playing on the fetishized notions concerning the body and the material, the slightly abstracted group of sculptures bridge narratives around aspirations and anxieties connected to human mythology. Through the expressive potential of crank clay different conceptions of containment take shape through art historical and anthropological modes. The body is presented through porous, vessel like parts which share stylistic characters with the pioneering female ceramicists of the Viennese Secessionist movement, the natural world, and folklore.

Pauliina Pöllänen (b. 1983, Finland) has a PhD in artistic research from The Art Academy, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design at the University of Bergen, 2023. In recent years Pöllänen has exhibited at the CLAY museum in Denmark, Kunsthall Grenland, Gustavsberg Porcelain Museum and Uppsala Art Museum in Sweden. She has been a resident artist at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2018, and at the Clay Studio in Philadelphia 2016. Her works can be found in the collections of KODE, Nasjonalmuseet, and Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum among other places.


Supported by: