On the southern part of Rødshue on Kirkøy, in a landscape full of remnants of old stonecutter activities, the sculpture park StenKunstHvaler is located. It is an outdoor exhibition that is easily accessible throughout the year.
Here you will find stone art by internationally known sculptors who work with local stone, leaving behind a work of art in the coastal landscape. Here an exciting meeting between old, local stone carving industry and modern, international sculpting business takes place in a magnificent landscape by the sea! The place has been visited for several summers by selected international artists who have worked with stone on the spot and leave behind a work of art that will remain for all time.
The first artist out here was the Italian Allesandro Stenico, who in 2005 erected the sculpture Witnesses of the Past. These two abstract columns are made from a large block of granite from the quarry at Urdal. There, the large block was split in two and shaped into a masculine and a feminine column. Which pillar is of which gender is up to each individual to consider. Although the columns are separated from each other, the viewer gets the impression that together they create a larger unit.
When you get closer to the sculpture, you see an egg-shaped stone placed in front of the columns. The stone is marked with a spiral pattern – a symbol of people's lives, and which reminds us that past and future are connected.
In 2006, it was the Japanese Makoto Fujiwara who prepared his Tribute to Røsshue. This tribute is to the landscape, but perhaps to the greatest extent to those who had their daily work here. He started from a niche that the stoneworkers worked in to get shelter from the weather. Here he has created a room from the materials he has found from previous quarries. Together with the small tree, a meditative place is created facing, but sheltered from, the stormy sea.
Vegard Hanve has quite concretely taken local materials as his starting point. Hans Refleksjon (Reflection), which was unveiled in 2007, is based on a cliff-shaped part of the mountain. Here he has polished parts of the mountain so that it reflects this cultural landscape which is the result of the stonemasons' toil. Out of the polished area, a glare is created in the surface, which reflects the light of nature. The sculpture's name alludes to reflection both as we can see with the naked eye when light meets darkness and reflections come and go, but also to reflection about what has been.
From Sweden, Ann Carlsson Korneev came in 2008 with her project En vandring mot horisontens ljus (A walk towards the light of the horizon). The sculpture is shaped like an eye that captures the light from the sea and sky outside towards the endless horizon. The sculpture's uneven lines challenge our ability to see. The game that occurs when we try to focus on a line, but as we get closer, it somehow dissolves. This alludes us to a further reflection on the transition between sky and sea through the way we look.
The latest was Norwegian Gunn Harbitz in 2009 with her artwork Gul Lophelia (Yellow Lophelia). The sculpture has a shape reminiscent of a woman's body, where the shapes of the figures protect the open space in the centre. Here in the center there is a container, which holds a small piece of coral-stem yellow lophelia, which is also found on the bottom of the sea outside the Hvaler Islands.
The artwork encourages us to take care of nature, the sea and our planet – and to see the fine-tuned ecological interaction.
Rødshue is worth a visit all year round, experience the wild, rugged coastal nature where the Skagerrak stands right up. Or not always so harsh, it varies from the quiet, sunny warmth that invites you to throw away your clothes to life-threatening storm gusts in the middle of winter where one should choose other activities. In combination with a chaos of rubble from the toil of the stoneworkers in the last century and the stone sculptures erected in our own, it provides contrasts that last.
You reach StenKunstHvaler and Rødshue by driving off the Fastlandsveien 300 meters east of the tunnel opening and following the sign pointing towards Rødshue. Drive the dirt road for about a kilometer until it ends at the car park. Walk a few tens of meters back along the road and out towards Rødshue along the marked path.