ArtistNorwegian
Sverre Koren Bjertnæs
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Sverre Koren Bjertnæs grew up in Trondheim and began his formal artistic training as a teenager under sculptor Tore Bjørn Skjølsvik. In 1993-94 he studied under Odd Nerdrum, whose rigorous figurative methods left a lasting imprint on his technical foundation. He went on to attend the National Academy of Arts in Oslo, where the academy established a new class in figurative painting under Professor Jan Sæther, and later completed studies at the ArtEZ hogeschool voor de kunsten in Enschede, the Netherlands, from 2002 to 2004.
Bjertnæs first drew wider attention with a series of photorealistic teenage portraits made during the late 1990s - works with a psychological intensity that situated him clearly within the figurative tradition while pushing against its conventions. His debut solo exhibition in 2000 was held at Galleri NAF in Oslo, the space run by artist Bjarne Melgaard, who became an early advocate for his work.
After his time in the Netherlands, the practice expanded substantially. Bjertnæs began working in bronze and wooden sculpture, drawing, installation, and video alongside painting. The 2013 exhibition Nervous Fluids at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo marked a high point of this multi-disciplinary period, drawing together works that addressed mortality, spirituality, and collective memory. In 2012 he had his first international solo exhibition, A Projective Identification, at White Columns in New York.
In more recent years he has returned to painting with particular focus, drawing on Norwegian modernist traditions from the postwar period and working with a vocabulary that weaves personal and spiritual narrative into layered figurative compositions. His work has been shown at Haugar Kunstmuseum, Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium, Gråmølna Trondheim Kunstmuseum, and James Fuentes in New York. He was selected as Britannia Artist in 2022. He holds a 10-Year Stipend for Established Artists from Arts Council Norway, awarded in 2019, in addition to earlier recognition including the Anders Jahre Prize for Young Artists in 2005 and the Blix Stipend in 1999.
On the secondary market, Bjertnæs is primarily handled by Grev Wedels Plass Auksjoner in Oslo, which has sold all 16 of his works currently tracked on Auctionist. Top recorded results include oil paintings reaching 160,000 NOK for "A Warmer Wind" and 150,000 NOK for "Revir II", with the work "The Collective Human (Memories about us)" achieving 70,000 NOK. His auction record internationally stands at approximately 70,000 USD for "Rainbow Crucifixion" at Blomqvist in 2020.