Biography
| My name is Børge Kjeldstad and I am an artist painter. I was born in Trondheim, Norway, in 1970. By education I have a masters degree in naval architecture, and a bachelor of arts degree. Being based in Trondheim, I have made paintings since 1998. In 2000 I did a long excursion to France, and in 2001 and 2002 I also had a studio outside Oslo. Apart from this, I have travelled many countries, and served many purposes. Spring 1997 I received my master of science degree from the Norwegian University if Science and Technology and started working with novel ship design at the research institute MARINTEK.The year before I was on the winning team in the prestigious Dr. James D. Lisnyk Ship Design Competition in New York. However, at that time, I already understood I wanted to be something else. I thought I was going to be a novelist, but took autumn 97 a drawing class in order to be able to sketch the ship solutions we were working on. That was a stroke of destiny. The drawing exercises seized me totally and a new energy boiled inside me. During the Christmas holiday I got my self some drawing equipment and set of drawing to investigate this further. The experience of a mental flow repeated itself. Was I supposed to become a painter? Mars 1998 I quit 50% of my job to try this out even more, and in June I quit the remaining 50%. The decision was taken. |
Diploma from SNAME |
The time after that was challenging. The first six years I worked as a bouncer at night clubs in Trondheim. I had to make some money, but I also needed something to do in the weekends. All my friends and colleagues from the university time had left the city and I was lonely. It was a long step from academia, but the working environment fantastic and the people wonderful. I wish today I had taken some photos from this period, but we doorkeepers had no tradition of photoshooting ourselves at work. In 2005 I got work at Trondheim Art Museum, and have learned a lot about how a museum and an exhibition hall works since. Oil paintings is what I do most. They have a strong figurative character, but a more dense symbolism has been an aim over the last years. The paintings tell stories from my own life, participate in political debate, and try to achieve an elevated aesthetic beauty. |
| From 1998 to 2010 I had a studio in a house nicknamed Villbo at Svartlamon in Trondheim. Villbo would translate to something like "wild living". Svartlamon is Trondheim's equivalent to East Village, Manhattan. It was spacious, generous and dynamic, but cold. The winter 2010 beat all records when I was painting in -3,5 degrees centigrades. The biggest challenge was not that I was freezing, but the painting never drying. So partly due to that, I moved into the city centre and an old building with parts dating back to 16th century. - My eyes longing for beautiful things, together with my soul longing for salvation, have no other power to ascend to heaven, than the contemplation of beautiful things. - Michelangelo. In 2006 I got a scholarship from one of the largest Norwegian banks. This was after a recommendation from Håkon Bleken, one of the best known contemporary Norwegian painters. Bleken has givven me valuable advice on my painting over several years. And the fact that he found interest in my work long before anyone else did, has had a decisive importance. I have also, with great benefit, received advice and guiding from the Norwegian painter Kjell Erik Killi Olsen. |
 Villbo |
Anti-art in Nidelva |
Within the theory of art it has been important for me to investigate the question whether I can have trust in the art institution or not. Is something art just because someone within the institution says it is? This was my starting point when I in 2000 gave a speech on art in the student society in Trondheim. Philosopher Lars Fredrik Svendsen was the other speaker. Later, in 2002, I continued the debate with the anti-art The stake on a bank in the river Nidelva in Trondheim. A six meter tall installation heading up stream. The intention was to point out that inventions like The stake is not necessarily art even though it would be possible to use rhetoric from the art institution to claim it was. In 2008 i went into a new dialogue with the art institution through the work The Art museum. The painting arguments that art itself is the looser on an art scene where the spectacular and head line making is dominating activity. The same year I had an open studio in The Troll wood at the Storås festival in Norway. The experience of painting in the open nature, discuss the paintings with festival participants, and being a part of the amazing Storås project, was great. |
| My first important exhibition took place at NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet Suhhmhuset. The exhibition title Broadcasting hints at art's ability to convey meaning. Two of the paintings displayed was inspired from photos from the second world war. Two of my family members escaped to England in 1941 and joined the Norwegian military services there. One of them, Kyrre Sørstrøm, who was an aeroplane mechanic, was in Normandy after the D-day. I got across his photo album from this period and the pictures in it made a strong impression. I wanted to re-tell their story. This became my entry into political art. |
The horses in Normandy |
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The past year and more I have devoted my art work to avant garde-ism. Bringing art to new places and thus increasing art space. This liberates art from the door keepers on the art scene. The freedom experienced at the outset of Le Salon Des Indépendants in Paris, and Høstutstillingen in Oslo in the early 1880ies, is reestablished. |
