Berit Kruger-Johnsen | Surrealist / Symbolist painter

Growing up in Oslo, Norway, nature has always played a major part in Berit Kruger-Johnsen's life. She studied for a degree in biology and upon completion was accepted into the only graphic design school in Oslo at that time.

The only artist in my family was my grandfather, who never met. It was crazy during the Depression era and was institutionalized. I think it would be fair to say that whenever an artist or not entitled connotations in my family.

I grew up in the region of Oslo, Norway. We had easy access to the sea, forests and mountains and nature played an important role in my life. I love drawing and after graduating with biology as my major, I have accepted in the only school of graphic design at the time of Oslo. Thus, a good compromise had been made, drawing and design with a purpose and tangible results.

I was lucky to be in school during a time when there were two splendid lecturing British illustrators. They had an act Laurel and Hardy van and my last portfolio was highly weighted to the illustration that despite being a fraction of the school's program.

I lasted one year in the advertising industry after graduation and worked as a freelance illustrator since.

I always had itchy feet and have never needed much of an excuse to go traveling. I stayed with my head on the heels of Australia in one of my trips and have lived in Australia, mostly in Melbourne, in the best of 13 years. With family still in Norway attempt over the head as many times as possible. I met a part of the green team in Washington in a trip to Birmingham side, and I am gradually coming around to thinking of myself as an artist, sane or not!

I feel so blessed to have grown up with the sea and the forest on my door. I had my most memorable moments in nature, but I had this attraction to the city from my student days in Oslo. Those long walks home in the middle of the summer nights, through the streets empty, are so special.

There are so many things in inspiration; Objects of their sculptural forms and what they represent, in a line of a song or an appointment, a fraction of a video clip. Using objects as metaphors; The paintings are like little stories. I think it is a natural extension of the picture. I act as my own client. Most of all it was about emotions and dramatic scenes are, as in sets an opera or a play.