Jubilee grant exhibition 1999

We warmly welcome you to the opening of this year’s Jubilee Grant Exhibition: BERIT MARIE FRIESTAD – Painting- Saturday, October 23 at 12:00 PM Exhibition period: October 23 to November 14, 1999

At this year’s Jubilee Grant Exhibition, Berit Marie Friestad will present 20 paintings from the period 1997–1999. The working title of the exhibition: Det snør litt, det blør litt is indicative of her poetic and intimate form of expression. With her simple lines, large color fields, and abstract figurative language, she conveys everyday poetry. Friestad is also deeply connected to the everyday, with a background as a housewife and teacher in Telemark.

“It’s difficult for me to put words to my paintings. I work on a double level. For example, there is a recognizable gymnastic movement in one motif of two girls stretching, but stretching can also be a striving or searching on an inner level. It’s my heart that collaborates with me, not so much my brain, and the heart is full of knowledge,” says Friestad Text translated by Oslo Kunstforening in 2025

Berit Marie Friestad was born in Klepp on Jæren in 1949. Even though she is not a landscape painter, her works can still evoke associations with the light and the open, cultivated fields of the Jæren landscape. She is self-taught, and debuted at the Autumn Exhibition (Høstutstillingen) in 1989, and has since participated in 1990, 1992, and 1997. She has exhibited in several group exhibitions and has also had several solo exhibitions, mainly in Agder, Telemark, and Rogaland. It wasn’t until 1996 that she fully committed to a career as a visual artist. In recent years, she has faced major challenges with solo exhibitions at Galleri Bomuldsfabrikken in Arendal and Hå gamle prestegård on Jæren.

The exhibition at Oslo Kunstforening in the fall of 1999 will be her first solo exhibition in Oslo. That her fellow artists value her work is evident in her repeated participation at the Autumn Exhibition and the awarding of several grants. Her artworks have also been acquired by the Norwegian Arts Council, the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget), Skien Art Gallery, Aust-Agder County Municipality, and Tvedestrand Art Association.

Text translated by Oslo Kunstforening in 2025