Sverre Bjertnes

As a futuristic coalition between Edvard Munch and Odd Nerdrum, SVERRE BJERTNES (1976-) emerges as a pop cultural response to a cry for figurative art. Bjertnes’ artwork balances on a thin line with its safe figurative motifs – preferably portraits – against contrasting surrealistic backgrounds.

Sverre Bjertnes was born and grew up in Trondheim. He has learned from some of Norway’s most famous figurative artists: In the period 1989-93 he was a student of Tore Bjørn Skjølsvik and in the years 1993-94 by Odd Nerdrum, after which he studied four years at the State Art Academy in Oslo under Arvid Pettersen and Jan Sæther (1995-99).

When Bjertnes became Odd Nerdrum’s student, he was sixteen years old. His early work was, of course, typical of the Nerdrum School: portraits, model studies and still life kept in dark tones. During the academic period, he worked towards a more photorealistic painting and dampened color use, with Vilhelm Hammershøi’s naked room from the last century as an obvious source of inspiration.

Sverre held his first solo exhibition was in Bjarne Melgaard’s gallery, Norwegian Anarchist Fraction (NAF), in 2000. Bjertnes has collaborated closely with Melgaard, shared workshops in New York and held four exhibitions during this period. It was a turning point, from the figurative to the more fluid and spontaneous in several genres and techniques.

Bjertnes has recently shifted towards focusing on sculptures and installations. These three-dimensional artworks are similarly influenced by his new dynamic expression. Although Bjertnes uses various styles of art in his artwork, all the works have a common denominator; They carry on a dark and kind of nightmare-like form of expression.

(source: https://www.fineart.no/kunstner/sverre-bjertnes)