Bjarne Melgaard developed his neo-expressionistic, gestural style of painting in the mid-1990s, often exploring subcultural and marginal topics—self-destructive impulses, deviant sexuality, and fringe religious beliefs—to confront social, political, and ideological boundaries. His distinct iconography draws on Norse mythology and pop culture, referencing everything from The Pink Panther and Planet of the Apes to Edvard Munch and Elizabeth Wurtzel. Beyond painting, Melgaard’s diverse practice encompasses sculpture, installation, fashion, literature, architecture, curation, video, and augmented and virtual reality.
His vividly colored canvases, often painted with thickly encrusted oil, feature hybrid human-animal figures set against luminous or monochromatic grounds and may incorporate Norwegian or English phrases. These works form an introspective exploration of personal archetypes, notably reflecting his embrace of male sexuality as both celebratory and tinged with angst. Though he doesn’t label himself explicitly political, Melgaard’s early alignment with 1970s–1980s queer politics informs his work. He also engages with Munch’s legacy in Norway, addressing sexuality, alienation, and death but reinterpreting them in his own idiosyncratic idiom.
Born in 1967 in Sydney to Norwegian parents, Melgaard grew up in Oslo and studied at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts. In 1991, he moved to the Netherlands for further studies at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht. After a decade in New York, he returned to Oslo in 2017. He represented Norway at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and participated in the Lyon Biennale (2000, 2013) and the Whitney Biennial (2014). Major exhibitions include a mid-career retrospective at the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo (2010) and Melgaard + Munch – The End Of It All Has Already Happened at the Munch Museum, Oslo (2015), which directly juxtaposed his work with Munch’s. In 2016, Rizzoli published the first comprehensive monograph on his career; he also authored A New Novel (2012), the first English-language novel from Aschehoug, followed by De Etterlatte (2021).
In 2019, Melgaard premiered his first virtual reality piece, My Trip, with Acute Art, exhibited at the Julia Stoschek Foundation in Berlin. He collaborated with Steiff on a toy collection shown at Kunsthall Stavanger in 2022 alongside musician and artist Chris Korda. A major retrospective at the Munch Museum, Oslo (2023) marked the first comprehensive survey of his career at a public institution in Norway. His works are held in many prominent collections, including Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 2024, a sculpture by Melgaard joined the collection of the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
