Written by Edwin Rostron to accompany Selina Trepp's exhibition at Pachinko, Oslo, Dec 2025 - Jan 2026.
Selina Trepp’s new work Reality’s Truth is dense, intense, hypnotic and ceaselessly interesting. There are worlds within worlds within worlds. I wonder how many times you would need to watch it before you had seen everything that takes place.
There is a lot of feeling in it. It goes into different emotional states, with many things building up and then being stripped back. There is a kind of climactic moment of two faces kissing, which I find quite moving; tender but somehow a bit sad too. Selina told me she nearly named the work ‘Love'.
The piece exudes the sheer exuberant joy of making things, of colour and shape and material, and yet its not frivolous or unserious - I find it opens my mind up to many things.
There is an overwhelming amount of information in the work, an abundance of different events. Watching it seems to reflect the dominant feeling of this current time; the feeling of trying to take in too much. Massive things and tiny things, everything that is happening now; in this moment, in my life, in the world, on the news, on my phone. Right now, a lot of this information is profoundly negative.
But Reality’s Truth doesn’t just illustrate this overload, it offers a space to consider it anew. Watching it, my mind opens up to think about how in the midst of terrible events and changes in society, politics, the climate and so on, there are also always all kinds of other things - even including positive and wonderful things - happening too. These things don't make the bad stuff any better, but you can't overlook them either. It makes me think about how a full understanding of the level of complexity in 'reality' which might constitute 'truth' is really beyond our limited human capabilities, and yet that doesn't mean this 'truth' doesn't exist or matter. Maybe we have to have a strong faith in this not-fully-knowable truth. It is there whether we can see it or not. For me this faith seems to directly relate to the making of art (in its broadest sense). Art helps me hold on to something like reality’s truth, which could be quite a fragile grip otherwise.
All the events taking place in the animation seem equally important. Some are bigger or more noticeable than others, but I feel like the work points to every tiny thing being completely vital too. Reality’s Truth gives me the feeling of that knowledge, and I remember again that Selina nearly named the work ‘Love'.