Torild Stray: Between Bergen and Brooklyn, circuitously

Contributed by Patrick Neal / This time of year in Norway, the sun sets around 10 PM and rises at 3 AM, and the day shifts from misty drizzles of rain to clear, sunny skies. Whether in a city or farther afield, the country’s natural topography is stunningly beautiful. Fjords, carved out by glaciers, are placid, meandering, and surrounded by steep cliffs. Waterfalls cascade and zigzag down mountains, and bright green meadows and deep, forested hills and valleys are everywhere. Dividing her time between North America and northern Europe, painter Torild Stray has absorbed dramatic intercontinental shifts and different cultures. “In many ways, New York shaped the analytical side of my artistic development, while Norway nurtured the emotional side. Painting has never felt like a career to me, it has always been a calling, a force from within that continues to drive me. My years in New York instilled in me a deep discipline and devotion to painting that continue to guide my work.”

Her studio is idyllically located in the Paradis neighborhood of Bergen in a former knitwear and textile factory, flanked by boats, piers, and rippling water. On a hot day, she could easily cool off by diving into Nordåsvannet Lake, right outside her windows. Stray studied art history at the University of Bergen and attended the Nordic School of Art in Finland before moving to the U.S. and enrolling at the New York Studio School. She takes seriously the Studio School’s embrace of Ingres’ famous credo: “Drawing is the probity of art,” noting that “drawing remains a fundamental part of my practice and helps create the fluidity and freedom I look for in the execution of a painting.” Once a week, she organizes a figure-drawing group in her studio building, originally conceived while residing in Industry City, Brooklyn, years ago.

In early June, there were drawings all over Stray’s studio – pinned to the walls, filling sketchbooks, covering tables. On the floor she had placed an array of robust still lifes in a range of intermediate greys, depicting skulls, found objects, and chunky flowers. Elsewhere, a constellation of small watercolors depicting people in a straightforward, somber manner read as experiments in mood, character, and expression. She also creates small sculptures in clay, busy with figures. For her, the variety in media and dimensions is revelatory and inspirational. “I enjoy moving between different scales and challenging my sense of proportion and space.”

During my visit, Stray pulled out several large oil paintings featuring bold variations in mark-making, dramatic figural groups, and striking color palettes. From their symphonic arrangements and ambiguous figure-ground relationships it was easy to infer the influence of climate and Norwegian literature and mythology. As she confirms: “my paintings develop through layers of meaning, unfolding stories, and constellations that emerge during the painting process. The subject matter presents itself to me. The paintings are somewhat like dreams in that anything can happen and each element carries a specific meaning, not in a literal sense but in a poetic sense.”

Stray’s sinuous gestures, heavy in pentimenti or stained in washy veils, animate existentially resonant characters presented in glowing halos and auras, bringing to mind Edvard Munch’s cumulative “soul’s diary” of emotionally charged images. In Oslo and Bergen, his profound and pervasive legacy is palpable. But Stray cites other notable influences, including Lars Hertervig’s mysterious and original vision, Paula Rego’s strong imagery and proclivity for artistic self-renewal, Hokusai’’s novel and surprising pictorial language, and Cycladic sculptural figures, a key attraction at the Met in New York. Stray has synthesized an eclectic style that draws on the globally connected condition of our times, meteorological and cultural, as well as art history to forge a highly original aesthetic outlook.

Torild Stray will be curating a drawing show at Akt & Kroki, Bergen in the Fall 2026, and will have her own upcoming exhibition at Gyldenpris Kunsthall, Bergen in 2027.

About the author: Patrick Neal is currently participating in the group exhibitions: Beyond the Island, Adelphi University, Garden City, NY, June – September; Twenty by Sixteen, Morgan Lehman Gallery, New York, NY, June – July; Oranges of Seville, Bowery Gallery, New York, NY,  June – July; Fabrications, Garvey Simon Gallery, New York, NY, April – October. Neal is a co-founder of Show&Tell, a lecture series at the New York Irish Center in Queens.