Jean Forneris - Curator of the Nice Museum of Fine Art, France (23 June 2012)

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Among Norwegian painters of the younger generation, Thorbjørn Morstad holds a profoundly original place.  And this originality cannot be measured within the compass of the fads and uncertain crazes of a new century insatiable for novelties. First, Thorbjørn Morstad remains in complete command of what I dare to call the noble art of painting, in the manner of the Old Masters: it is an essential practice in order to establish a substantive creation, both in terms of  physical durability and in terms of a rigorous construct for the viewer.

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First, his is an act of “representation”, the honouring of image and the richness of its language. There is no easy way out here, born out of disorderly gesture. Then there is his choice of subjects, a diverse and varied range of themes.  Thorbjørn Morstad revisits subjects of classical or modern mythology, biblical characters, historical personae, literary masterpieces, or simply the complex realities of a modern world which increasingly little lends itself to conceptualization – all in deeply personal vein. His representation is in no way a realism: the artist submits beings and objects to distortion or even to metamorphosis – and this is reminiscent of the surrealist movement – bending the ‘real’ to his neo-spiritual pursuit. His work makes sense and should be understood through the dual code of composition and colour. Both of these are thought of not only in terms of visual consistency, but also according to a symbolic role, of which the painter is the instigator. But this symbolism, which is sifted through a compelling intellect, is also rooted in a long tradition. Indeed we might even say it is rooted in many traditions, the wisdom of which Thorbjørn Morstad simultaneously questions. Sometimes, the piece becomes more abstract and presents itself as a kind of “rebus”.  For this Norwegian, the art of painting remains resolutely a “cosa mentale,” (in Leonardo’s famous dictum) a function of the mind. Each painting should be thought as a coherent singularity:  the title, the structured representation both through rigorous geometric construction – a symbolic form – and through the choices of colour  (another powerful symbolism) as well as through the narrative itself,  if we may be forgiven the use of the term. All these elements come together to give a  completed coherence in each work.

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Although  we are about to commemorate the appearance in 1913, of the first “ready-made”, created by Marcel Duchamp, a founding act of definitive modernity daring to predict the death of painting, the Norwegian, Thorbjørn Morstad,  shows equally at the beginning of the 21st century, throughthe wealth of his creations, the perennial vitality of a major art, and this with an unusual strength.

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Words by Jean Forneris