"Tomorrow I will start a new and better life" - almost finished embroidery work.

Composition of stills from Sigbjørn's video installation created in MoKS.

"Tomorrow I will start new and better life" - almost finished embroidery work.

Sigbjørn Bratlie is a Norwegian artist working with installation, painting, video and performance. His art practice has a conceptual and analytical undertone, and humour is an important part of it. The concept of language is also central to his work. Influenced by pop music and literature, TV sit-coms and poetry, he tries to reflect upon contemporary visual culture in terms of confusion or bewilderment. On the other hand, there is a humoristic lightness or irreverence in his work that is mainly influenced by comics and slapstick movies. In essence, his artwork tries to both represent and make linguistic sense of the continuous flow of mass media imagery that surrounds us today.

Sigbjørn Bratlie

Sigbjørn Bratlie is a Norwegian artist working with installation, painting, video and performance. His art practice has a conceptual and analytical undertone, and humour is an important part of it. The concept of language is also central to his work. Influenced by pop music and literature, TV sit-coms and poetry, he tries to reflect upon contemporary visual culture in terms of confusion or bewilderment. On the other hand, there is a humoristic lightness or irreverence in his work that is mainly influenced by comics and slapstick movies. In essence, his artwork tries to both represent and make linguistic sense of the continuous flow of mass media imagery that surrounds us today

A key ingredient in his way of working is what he likes to call «the artist as anti-hero» – i.e. – the artist who desperately tries to create profound, deep-felt and groundbreaking work, but who usually fails miserably. This strategy accounts for a lot of the humour in his work, a strategy that allows him to see serious matters from an unusual and unexpected point of view. During his 2-month stay at MoKS, Sigbjørn Bratlie is working on a series of text based embroideries that combine traditional handicraft and phrases taken from graffiti or hip hop, plus he is producing a video that deals with communication in a foreign language: The artist has taken it upon himself to teach himself Estonian, and to produce a piece of work that deals with his often futile attempts at communicating with local people.

www.sigbjornbratlie.com