oil on linen, 155 x 212 cm /61 x 83,5 inches. Photo by Thor Brødreskift.
Contributed by Patrick Neal / This time of year in Norway, the sun sets around 10 o’clock at night and rises at 3 a.m., and the day shifts from misty drizzles of rain to clear, sunny skies. Whether in a city or further 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 everywhere are bright green meadows and deep, forested hills and valleys. It’s no surprise that the painter, Torild Stray mentions these climatic factors as influential to her work. As someone who has straddled dramatic atmospheric conditions, and has divided her time between North America and northern Europe, Stray has absorbed the intercontinental shifts and characteristics of 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 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. The Studio School’s embrace of Ingres’ famous credo, “drawing is the probity of art” is something Stray takes seriously. “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 current studio building, originally conceived while residing in Industry City, Brooklyn years ago.
When I visited her studio in early June of this year, there were drawings everywhere; pinned to the walls, filling sketchbooks and covering tables. Stray placed an array of black and white drawings on the floor, robust still lifes done in acrylic on paper in a range of intermediate greys, depicting skulls, found objects, and chunky flowers. Elsewhere there was a constellation of small watercolors depicting people in a straightforward, somber manner that read like experiments in mood, character and expression. She also creates small relief sculptures in clay rife with figures, and finds the disparity in media and dimensions revelatory, as stepping stones into her work. “I enjoy moving between different scales and challenging my sense of proportion and space.”
72 x 79,9 inches. Photo by Thor Brødreskift.
During my visit, Stray pulled out several large oil paintings with bold variations in mark-making, dramatic figural groups, and striking color palettes. With their symphonic arrangements and ambiguous figure/ground relationships it was easy to infer the influence of climate and Norwegian literature and mythology. “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. Nature, current events, natural disasters, and the human condition are all part of it and art history has been one of my greatest teachers. The development of pictorial language informs my work and I hope to contribute, in my own way.”
38,6 x 51,2 inches. Photo by Thor Brødreskift.
58,3 x 82,7 inches. Photo by Thor Brødreskift.
Stray’s sinuous gestures, heavy in pentimenti or stained in washy veils give life to characters foregrounded in glowing halos and auras that are existentially resonant. They bring to mind Edvard Munch’s “soul’s diary”, a life’s work of images emotionally and psychologically charged with personal history. Traveling in Oslo and Bergen, Norway, one can’t but help absorb the legacy and contribution to modern art that Munch has imprinted on the country, but Stray cites an array of other notable influences. These include Lars Hertervig for his mysterious and original vision, Paula Rego’s strong imagery and ability to renew herself as an artist, Hokusai’s pictorial language so full of surprises, and Cycladic sculptural figures, always a first stop when visiting the Met Museum in New York. Stray has synthesized an eclectic and far reaching variety of styles and art history that draw on the global, connected and meteorological conditions of our times, and has contributed to her own original vision.
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.
