SVERRE KOREN BJERTNÆS
Knut Ljøgodt
When, some four years ago, Sverre Koren Bjertnæs exhibited a palpably realistic painting of eight life-size teenage boys, it caused a stir. Whereas Norwegian figurative painters from Odd Nerdrum onwards had shrouded their art in old-masterly mystique, it was a shock to encounter an artist from that tradition who wanted his painting to relate to the present, both thematically and stylistically.
From the Nerdrum school to sober realism
Sverre Koren Bjertnæs was born in Trondheim in 1976. He received his first artistic training in his hometown as a student of Tore Bjørn Skjølsvik. In 1993 he became a student of Odd Nerdrum. From 1995 to 1999 he studied at the National Academy of Fine Art in Oslo, for the first year under Arvid Pettersen, and subsequently under Jan Valentin Sæther in the class for figurative and traditional painting, which was set up in 1996.
Understandably enough, Bjertnæs’ early works were typical of a Nerdrum student; portraits and studies of models restricted to dark brown tones with old-masterly references. Of particular interest from this period are a series of studies of heads created at the Institute of Anatomy. By means of such studies, the artist developed a fundamental understanding of the craft and techniques of figurative painting. Although he subsequently developed in another direction, the insights gained during that period are of decisive significance.
Part of the problem with figurative painting in this country is that people’s view of it has been influenced by ideology. Here we are speaking of figurative painting in a strict, more or less naturalistic, sense. This applies not least in the context of Nerdrum and his students, regarding whom people have traditionally been either for or against. The result is that the territory surrounding many of these artists has become rather sectarian – and hence uncritical. This is surely one of the reasons why, fairly early on, Bjertnæs felt the need to distance himself from the ideals of that environment.
During his time at the National Academy, Bjertnæs began to shake off the old-master style and all the references that that entailed. Instead he began painting in a more photorealistic style, in which all the superfluous elements were peeled away. The first Bjertnæs work encountered by the current author was a nude of a young girl, exhibited in Oslo in 1997. Writing in Morgenbladet at the time, I described the picture as “seemingly so pure and immediate in its presentation that the whole thing appears to verge on simplification … With its almost minimalist purity and its consistent realism, the picture comes across as a refreshing clarification.”
One artist who must obviously have been a model for Bjertnæs is the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi. Around the turn of the past century, this artist depicted quiet Biedermeier interiors in grey hues and meticulously built up of detailed brushwork. Bjertnæs’ art during his Academy years was also developing steadily in the direction of a greyish palette.
Both technically and thematically, we can view Bjertnæs’ teenage pictures in the tradition of 1970s neo-realism. The teacher Jan Sæther must have exerted a degree of influence on this development. When he became professor at the National Academy, Sæther had a background of many years’ work in the US, and he brought with him influences from that country’s neo-realist tradition. This sober style of painting and the subdued attitude to colour is also apparent in the work of several of Bjertnæs’ fellow students in the Academy’s figurative class, such as Christopher Rådlund, albeit with a more romantic signature.
The teenager’s picture chronicler
The artist’s newly acquired form of expression was demonstrated in a new choice of theme – a series of depictions of teenagers. Bjertnæs showed some of these pictures at the Academy’s graduation exhibition in 1999, and Lotte Sandberg wrote about the sudden change in her review in Aftenposten:
The former Nerdrum student Sverre Koren Bjertnæs has broken with the romantic tradition and opted for a demanding language with references to film and photography. Technically brilliant portraits of young girls emphasise this break in their use of signal red details and a palette that is otherwise mellow. The pictures suggest a broader narrative … A sense of discomfort is produced by the conjunction of the young girl’s innocence and the painter’s gaze. In addition, Bjertnæs contextualises his paintings by means of a range of snapshot-style catalogue photos, in which he actually places himself in a young “wannabe” scene.
The sudden change in Bjertnæs’ development can also be viewed in connection with his entry into other artistic circles. In 1997 he moved out to his painter colleague Unni Askeland in Ullensaker. Here Bjertnæs made use of the latter’s four children and their friends as models.
Bjertnæs’ exhibition in 2000 at the Norsk Anarkistisk Fraksjon (Norwegian Anarchistic Fraction – a gallery run by the artist Bjarne Melgaard) consisted of a series of pictures of teenagers. Whereas the earlier pictures of young girls had been fairly traditional nudes – seen through the eyes of the adult artist – in these pictures he entered into the teenagers’ own world. The spirit of these paintings is sober and strictly realistic, constrained to almost monochrome grey tones, as in Signe i døren (Signe in the doorway) (1998). Here the model stands naked, except for her knee-length stockings, the depiction balancing on the edge of a Lolita aesthetic. Thematically, the viewer’s thoughts are drawn in the direction of the Swiss artist Balthus. In later works this aspect is toned down.
One continuation of the teenager project was the series of paintings of dead girls – or more precisely, of girls playing dead. Thea 8 år leker død (Thea, aged 8, plays dead) shows a naked girl lying prostrate on a bed. Death is a theme that has fascinated many artists, and Bjertnæs chose to approach it through the games children play.[1]
The main work in the exhibition of 2000 was a monumental painting (200 x 375 cm) of eight teenage girls, Line, Kathrine, Maria S., Linda, Maria H., Elene, Signe og Stella. The eight girls are portrayed standing side by side, dressed in their typical clothes, as if they were saying “This is us!” In the exhibition catalogue, the artist Anders Eiebakke wrote about this painting:
There is something deeply humane about this voluminous picture. Bjertnæs has found his way into a family and into the life of the daughter, Signe, and her circle of friends out in a rural setting. As a participant in the daily life of these teenagers, he has gained the trust of people who live a double life between the worlds of adulthood and childhood. Bjertnæs has assumed the function of picture chronicler for this flock of teenagers, a painter who takes pubescent girls very seriously as individuals.[2]
Eiebakke goes on to say that these teenage girls are “captured in a phase of collective transition,” and he asserts: “This moment is highly romantic, and beautiful.”
The highpoint of Bjertnæs’ teenager project was a large group portrait of ten teenage boys, Rune Red, Tor Olav, Kenta, Dennis, Nader, Rune, Henrik, Kirpua, Daniel og Shahab, shown at the Young Artists Society in 2002. This work was likewise of monumental size (200 x 450 cm). Here the main characters are a gang of young male friends, portrayed wearing saggy trousers and, in some cases, bare chested. The photorealistic rendering of these youngsters contrasts with the urban camouflage pattern that forms a backdrop. This lends the picture a stylised element, which emphasises the fact that the artist has not attempted to create a realistic illusion of space. In other words, we are left in no doubt that this is a painting we are looking at. The pattern and the boys’ clothes refer to hiphop culture and the lives of teenagers.
This group portrait is a pendant to the large picture of the girls. The artist has also repeated these motifs in a number of variations. The postures of the youngsters portrayed balances between vulnerability and the cocky attitude often shown by young people. The paintings are both portraits of individuals and a depiction of a social group. These motifs can also be seen in the context of traditional group portraits and heroic portrayals. Perhaps in his pictures Bjertnæs is attempting, if not to heroize, at least to accentuate teenage life and culture. The artist has succeeded to a significant degree in giving this group an identity, something that only becomes fully apparent when we hear the expressions of recognition among teenagers who look at these pictures.
“You will write your life” – the mythology of narcotics and autobiography
One group of pictures from 2003 was painted entirely in tints of grey, like traditional grisailles. In these paintings the artist played with a variety of techniques and art-historical references, as for example in Giacometti Dog. The series Christ Divided shows various segments of Christ on the cross. This play on historical paraphrases, presented in fragments, prompts associations to, for example, the works that Bjørn Ransve created in the 1970s and 80s. Similar to the pictures of Ransve, Bjertnæs’ paintings can be regarded as a kind of meta-art, commenting on art and its functions.
Some of these pictures show motifs relating to the problem of narcotics, a theme that was taken up in its full scope in Bjertnæs’ next major project, “Incognito”, an exhibition at Trondheim Art Museum in 2004 and at Blomqvist Fine Art the following year.[3] The title “Incognito” alluded to, among other things, the anonymity of drug addicts in therapy institutions.
Perhaps the most traditional painting here was Blue Interior, which depicts a public toilet under blue light. In this case the photorealistic style and the limited colour scale is taken a step further than it was in the teenager pictures. If it were not for the subject as such, this picture could be viewed as a traditional and beautiful interior painting. What we know, however, is that blue light is used in public toilets to prevent drug addicts from injecting themselves, and thus we surmise that it is the miserable existence of such people that lies behind this motif.
In this exhibition the artist presented not just paintings but also various kinds of installation. One room showed pictures that were only visible in ultraviolet light, accompanied by sound. Here the artist portrayed himself in the company of famous narcotic icons such as Edgar Allan Poe, William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Francis Bacon, Martin Kippenberger and others – all of them artists or writers whose lives and careers were closely associated with various forms of addiction. For a beat author like Burroughs, the self-destructive lifestyle formed the basis for his literary works. Through these associations, Bjertnæs situated his persona in a romantic-Bohemian mythology. The painting Rainbow Grid, which shows the rock star Kurt Cobain after his suicide, belongs to a corresponding mythology.
One triptych consists of a self-portrait set between nightmarish scenes and symbols of death and destruction. Torleif’s Portrait shows an aging alcoholic in a detoxification clinic. On one side he is flanked by a medieval doomsday scene, in which we see the damned being thrown down into hell while a nocturnal metropolis lours in the background. On the other side we see a view through a window in one of the institution’s rooms. But for the alcoholic the outside world has become unreal. In pictures of this kind the artist shows us the condition of the substance abuser from the inside. In Eva’s Delirium he goes even further. In this picture we are witness to the drunken hallucinations of an intoxicated woman – in the form of four cowboys! Back on Boogie Street, which takes its title from a song by Leonard Cohen, shows what the streets of a big city might look like to someone who is seriously drunk. The motifs are taken from Shanghai, and the depiction of the street with its flashing neon lights draws inspiration from the aesthetics of pop art – a stylistic device the artist pursues further in his latest exhibition, “Implosion”.
Rainbow Crucifixion, a continuation of other much-discussed crucifixion pictures by the artist, is a work with explicit art-historical references. Reviewing this painting in Dagbladet, Harald Flor wrote that it “has something of the reflective and remote character that we associate above all with the strategies of the German painter Gerhard Richter.” Christ on the cross is possibly the best known motif of suffering, and the symbolism is clear; Christ suffers, as do the ostracised substance abusers and the “romantic” artist to boot! The use of the triptych format in these portraits emphasises the religious aspect. In this way, the diverse works in “Incognito” partake of a unifying iconography.
“Incognito” built in part on personal experiences, and it was courageous of the artist to expose the darker side of his biography in this way. The series Peripeteia (2005) was similarly strong on autobiography. The pictures are all based on photographs; in some cases old black and white family photos, in others more recent colour photos. The use of photos depicting one’s own background as a foundation for paintings is something we know from another young artist, Kira Wager.
Peripeteia is a term that derives from ancient Greek tragedy, meaning “a sudden change of fortune”. Aristotle defines peripeteia as “a change by which the action of a play veers round to its opposite, subject always to our rule of probability or necessity.”[4] In Greek drama a reversal of this kind can result in a tragic change in the life of the protagonist – as for example when Oedipus discovers that he has murdered his father and married his own mother. At that point it becomes clear to the hero that his entire life and everything he has ever believed is utterly wrong!
In one picture we see the artist himself with a humiliating crewcut, in another his face is bloodied after a drunken brawl, in a third we see his girlfriend sleeping it off in the sun – and so on. These pictures alternate with the old, idyllic family pictures, in which the artist as a child poses with his parents and siblings. Without it being specifically stated, we are led to understand that in Peripeteia the artist is confronting both his own past and that of his family. In recent years Bjertnæs has worked on autobiographical themes, thereby perpetuating the old Bohemian ideal of “You will write your life!”
Sverre Koren Bjertnæs’ background is an artistic environment of highly traditional orientation. He has retained the craftsmanship of figurative painting as his foundation, but this he has brought up to date in terms of both subject matter and technique. He thereby demonstrates a will to overstep the boundaries between traditional painting and newer art forms. For this reason some people have described Bjertnæs as a conceptual artist. I consider this to be wrong. Bjertnæs expresses himself first and foremost through his painting. His use of installations and the like should rather be viewed as an extension of the themes addressed in his paintings. It is evident, however, that one of his ideals is to say something of relevance to the time in which he lives; it is an ideal that can be traced back to the challenge that Baudelaire issued to the artist one and a half centuries ago – to go out and paint modern life.
Notes
This text is based in part on the following earlier articles by the author: “Fra tradisjon til fornyelse? Figurativt maleri i Norge fra 1970 til idag”, in Tradisjon og fornyelse: Figurativt samtidsmaleri, exhibition catalogue, Art Museum of Northern Norway, Tromsø 2006; “Mot en ny nøkternhet i det figurative maleri”, in Kunst, no. 4 2002 / no. 1 2003; “Sverre Koren Bjertnæs: På sporet av den tapte ungdomstid”, in Kunst Showroom, no. 1 2002.
[1]Thea 8 år leker død featured in the exhibition at the Norsk Anarkistisk Fraksjon in 2000. The series of young girls playing dead was part of the exhibition “Nekrologer” (Obituaries), which Bjertnæs mounted together with Unni Askeland and Morten Viskum at Drammens Kunstforening in 2001.
[2] Anders Eiebakke: “Et gripende maleri”, in Sverre Koren Bjertnæs, exhibition catalogue, Norsk Anarkistisk Fraksjon, Oslo 2000.
[3] See also Jan Jonker: “Iconic Subterfuge: Sverre Bjertnæs goes ‘Incognito’”, in Sverre Bjertnæs: Incognito, exhibition catalogue, Trondheim Art Museum 2004 and Blomqvist Fine Art, Oslo 2005; further, Beate Petersen: “En alvorsstemt maskerade”, in Kunst, no. 4 2004.
[4] Aristotle: Poetics (1452a).