"PLACES YOU WERE IS A SERIES OF PAINTINGS EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLACE, MEMORY AND THE STORIES THAT BECOME PART OF OUR OWN LIVES.
SOME OF THE WORKS TAKE THEIR STARTING POINT IN MY LATE HUSBAND'S TRAVEL DIARIES AND POEMS, WRITTEN LONG BEFORE WE MET. OTHERS DRAW ON PLACES WE EXPERIENCED TOGETHER, WHILE SOME EXPLORE MORE ELUSIVE LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY AND EMOTION. MOVING BETWEEN HIS JOURNEYS AND OUR SHARED EXPERIENCES, THE PAINTINGS BRING TOGETHER DIFFERENT LAYERS OF TIME AND PERSONAL HISTORY, OPENING UP NEW WAYS OF SEEING A LIFE AND THE PERSON WHO LIVED IT.
PHOTOGRAPHS, HANDWRITTEN NOTES, FRAGMENTS OF TEXT AND FOUND PAPER BECOME PART OF THE PAINTINGS, LAYERED, OBSCURED AND SOMETIMES REVEALED. THESE TRACES OF LIVED EXPERIENCE TAKE ON NEW MEANINGS AS THEY BECOME PART OF SOMETHING ELSE.
THE PLACES THAT EMERGE ARE NOT ALWAYS GEOGRAPHICAL. SOME ARE REMEMBERED OR IMAGINED; OTHERS SUGGEST INNER LANDSCAPES, STATES OF MIND OR FLEETING MOMENTS THAT RESIST BEING PUT INTO WORDS. THEY REFLECT HOW PLACES BECOME PART OF US, SHAPED BY EXPERIENCE, EMOTION AND THE STORIES WE CARRY.
RATHER THAN RECONSTRUCTING PLACES AS THEY WERE, THE PAINTINGS EXPLORE WHAT REMAINS, WHAT CHANGES, AND WHAT EMERGES WHEN FRAGMENTS OF DIFFERENT LIVES, MEMORIES AND EXPERIENCES COME TOGETHER IN NEW FORMS."
- LISE BJERKAN
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ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lise Bjerkan is an Oslo-based visual artist working across painting, photography and text. Her work explores memory, place and lived experience, often moving between external and inner landscapes.
Working intuitively and in layers, she combines painting with photography, collage, text and found materials. Her works move between the figurative and the abstract, drawing on places, personal histories and fragments of lived experience. Images are built up, obscured and revealed, allowing new meanings and unexpected connections to emerge.
Bjerkan studied fine art at Nydalen Kunstskole and photography at Oslo Fotokunstskole. She also holds a master’s degree in journalism and a doctorate in social anthropology. Her interdisciplinary background informs her longstanding interest in people, places and the stories they carry.
"I am drawn to stories – to people who carry them, places that hold them, and the traces they leave behind. The smooth and flawless hold little interest for me. I look for what bears the marks of life. For this reason, I prefer materials that resist control and can surprise me – thick layers of paint, charcoal, ink, and torn paper, stitched or pieced together in new ways. Photography is equally important to my practice. It brings concrete moments and places into the work – visual anchors within an abstract landscape.
Through layer upon layer of paint, drawing, collage, photography, and other materials, something begins to emerge. I build up and break down, add and scrape away. Earlier traces are not necessarily erased, but become part of what follows. My work develops in a dialogue between the recognisable and the abstract, between what can be told and what can only be sensed.
I am interested in how memories change, how places become embedded in us, and how fragments can hold stories larger than what we are able to see. For me, making art is about discovering, preserving and transforming such traces – not to tell a finished story, but to open a space where the viewer can linger, make connections, and perhaps find stories of their own."
