Interview with Torild Stray, June 24th, 2010, Brooklyn, NY

Q: Where do you locate yourself on the spectrum of representation and
abstraction?

I don't believe in the distinction. The way I see painting is that if it
Really works it works on both levels at the same time. It is something very
concrete and has a presence and an authenticity to it and at the same time it
works in an abstract sort of way. Even a head in a so-called representational
painting, if the painting is really profound and really works, works in an
abstract way.

If we go all the way back to the caves, the image was clear representation,
and had a magic purpose. It wasn't art but it was image making. It was
representation of something, of an energy. That is something I'm interested
in. Painting represents something other than just my will.

Q: How important is a sense of spatial depth in your paintings? How do you
achieve it?

Spatial depth is completely crucial. Without it, there isn't space for the
spirit; for the viewer to go and answer the painting. Flat painting is a
different way of thinking about painting than how I think about it.

I don't construct space based on previous ideas like central perspective or
other ideas like that. I achieve it through intuition and of course
composition. Also color value, size, the negative spaces, the positive
spaces, the placements. A lot of that is achieved by drawing. Ultimately you
draw with the brush. Drawing is totally key to achieving spacial depth and
also for understanding it. Painting is completely an abstract language;
drawing is an intuitive and also knowledge based tool into painting.

When I answered that I tried to break it up. But when you paint it is all at
the same time. Painting is as complex, as you make it. You just engage and
engage and engage. Open up the door.

Q: Which artists inform your work in its representational aspects? In its
abstract aspects?

I always go to life more than I go to other artists. I am informed by life,
and nature, and light and the city, what I eat, my friends, moments, anything
I see and read and what is going on in the world. But of course, I was educated
and studied a lot of artists. Who is informing me changes all the time.
If I'm working on a certain palette or a certain thing in a painting I will
go and source it out.

In terms of representational aspects, Rembrandt's way of making skin. Or
Velázquez too. I'm definitely interested in skin. Then you have still-life
painters like Zurbarán. They inform me in the way they are meaty and real.
They are really celebrating the paint.

The abstract aspects can also be Piero della Francesca. He was a
mathematician, which I think is in great art. I am definitely influenced by
Rothko, as the post-contemporary artist that I am. I don't always go to
Rothko, I have problems with him. There's Jackson Pollock, too. What I like
about him is that he is so direct, not careful, not holding back.

I try to take what I need from them. I don't apply certain systems but they
come through in their own way. It comes out more and more as I mature as an
artist or as a person. I am more and more conscious about everything as I
grow older and get more experience as a painter. That is an abstract aspect
too.

Q: In what ways are the figures in your paintings concrete?

When I start a painting I have a dialog with the painting. Sometimes I have
stronger ideas about a painting and sometimes I just engage. The figures
start appearing in an abstract way. They have to be moved around until they sit
right. And then, I also have to come in, almost like a butcher in a way, to
get rid of that and move that. It takes a while to establish them. Then it
is almost like a process of getting to know them. They go from being marks --
lines and dots -- to an entity in a specific place.

It is sometimes really hard to see it as it happens. To the viewer and to me,
they are clarifying themselves as you see the paintings over and over. I step
away and I see it later. What might not even seem a figure in first glance
becomes a figure on further viewing depending on the light, the psychological
state of the viewer, etc..

Q: Are the figures specific?

A lot of them become specific. Some remain a little unspecific, a little
ambivalent. Sometimes it can be a figure I know from another painting. 'Oh
you are here again.' Sometimes I don't know. And then crisis comes in. They
do acquire and require a specificity. They want to be clarified. Where are
they and what are they doing? What state are they in psychologically?
Emotionally? What are they, through their body language, expressing? That's
frustrating.

They almost have multiple functions. They are telling a story and they are
abstract elements. Sometimes I learn after the fact what the content of the
painting really is. There are layers of meaning and layers of a story. I
don't claim that I know all the stories. I don't have a specific thing I want
people to see. I want them to try and look for things and be open. Sometimes
other people see and make connections I didn't even make. That fits with me
as a painter. That's a very interesting dialog that goes on that helps me to
develop as a painter. That is one of the reasons it's great to have an
exhibition.

Q: What position does the viewer have to the figures?

The viewer is key. One thing I encourage when one looks at paintings, any
paintings, is that you engage in it physically. Definitely go closer.
Definitely go back again. Interact with the painting. I would go so far as
to say the figures can help the viewer enter the painting. The figure aspect
of the paintings is the very human aspect of the paintings. It's natural to
me to work with figures. It's a natural extension of who I am as a painter.
But of course, it's not pure representation, and so people get confused and
provoked. It is a painting and it's definitely not telling you the whole
story like a newspaper article. That's where the viewer comes in and engages.
You have to be open as a viewer, then they can come alive. That's where the
big word Art comes: it opens another world.

Q: What is the role of space in your painting?

Painting can have healing qualities. It can express something that words,
music, dance, cannot express. It has an immediacy, a very authentic presence,
and at the same time can be meditative and very slow; can survive for
centuries and nurture us with something we need. The space, in that context
is where the painting comes alive. Space is sort of holy too.

What is space? Is it a complete spiritual idea? Space is also a parameter.
This is my world. It becomes the entity that I inhabit. Sometimes you can't
breathe in the paintings because they are so rich, so dense. Other times it's
more forgiving. It's not like I'm always trying to make it a pleasant space,
or a comfortable space.

Q: Do you respond to paintings of religious scenes?

Not because they are religious, but because they are great paintings
expressing emotional human aspects. The ones in the year one thousand, those
are amazing. I'm thinking of the Crucifixions. Not just in painting, but in
wood. The Crucifixions that are so full of expression throughout the European
history that I grew up with. As a younger painter I tried to tackle the
Crucifixion because that was always depicted by other painters I admired.

The scene for me, of all the religious scenes I grew up with, is the Pieta.
There is something about the way the body is depicted. The deadness of the
body and then he is resurrected, if you go by the story. That's been done in
amazing ways. The hand -- I've always been fascinated by hands -- they way
they express being alive. My paintings are about being alive, the human
condition.

Q: How do you feel about your paintings being described as having a spiritual
space?

I'd be flattered. It doesn't attach it to religion, I hope. Spirit? I would
honor that, if my paintings were described that way. It's a crucial aspect, a
dimension of being alive. We're not just meat and blood, we're something else
too. I'd be flattered also, because that's not something you can will. You
can't will a space to be spiritual. I'm just a little painter. I'm the
in-between guy.

Q: Do you connect your paintings to Norway?

I definitely have a lot of my strength as a painter, from Norway. From
Scandinavia. From the Nordic light. There's nothing like it. The white and
blue snow with the pink sky. The open vidde. The fjords, of course. The
curves in nature. The fruit trees in the summer light. I could elaborate
forever. And the troll stories, everything we grew up with, all the myths
that are part of our whole being. You can physically see it. You can see
things transform in nature. I go back to nature. I grew up in Norway's
second biggest city and nature is much closer there than it is in New York
City. The blues, the whole palette, is from there. But I had to be away from
it to really work it out.

Q: What does it mean for you to have a show in Norway?

It's meaningful for me to have a show in Norway. It's in the context where
I'm from. With my people, so to speak. We have some of the same references
and we have a connection. I can't take that away, as much as I live somewhere
else. I'm grateful that I can go back there and share, have this dialog with
Norwegians and with Norway.

Q: To what extent are you a Norwegian painter? A New York painter? An
international painter?

I'm a Norwegian painter. It's apparent in my work that I am Norwegian, I
think. What does that mean to be a Norwegian painter? I don't know if
Norwegian painters would even use that term. Am I a New York painter? I
definitely am. I've been here so long; I'm referred to as a New York painter.
If I have to choose, I'm an international painter; independent of country.
I'm all three.

There was something about taking myself out of Norway -- out of all the
beauty, all the great qualities that Scandinavia has -- to this place that is
such a contrast: every religion, every food, every painting. It has brought
something out of me that couldn't be released in the context at home. The
city always stretches your idea of beauty and is a great contrast to Norway.

In the 1850s, the Norwegian artists go to Paris, they paint fjords and
dramatic landscapes, and so they became more Norwegian than they were. They
became national romantics. I'm not saying I am that, but I think I am now
more able to access some of my Nordic essence.

What would make me a Norwegian painter, if there is such a term? The stories
and the content in the paintings is definitely connecting with my roots more
and more as I mature and take risks as a contemporary painter. Not as a
nationality -- I wish we had another word -- but the sagas, the stories, the
clarity, the goddesses, everything that was there. They had something for us
that is coming through in my paintings that we can learn from.

Oliver Karlin is an independent writer based in New York.