Do you remember Coleridge’s poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner from school? With its storms, spirits, and lurking danger it conjures up the sea and gives the reader goosebumps:

Water, water everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water everywhere
Nor any drop to drink.

It’s time to revisit the frightening, fascinating ocean. But now it is Claus Hoie who leads us on the voyage, bringing to life the sea, its creatures and ships as we go. With clear, clean lines Hoie lets us taste the salty winds and feel the chilly depths.
The newly opened exhibition “Natural and Imaginary Worlds” at Trygve Lie Gallery spans forty years of Hoie’s work, and features not only sea life, but an array of giant insects, still lifes and landscapes – all done in marvelous watercolor.
Born in Stavanger, Hoie emigrated to the United States at age twelve, served in the Merchant Marine as an “able-bodied seaman” in his younger years, and went on to receive formal art training at the Ecole Beaux Arts in Paris and the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.
“We’re happy to have Claus Hoie here,” said Gallery Director Eirik Fluge. “This exhibition has come together beautifully thanks to curator Phyllis Braff and the Norwegian Immigration Association.”
Hoie said he was honored to be invited to the Gallery and that in a way he’d come full circle.