Anders Gjennestad

Anders Gjennestad was born in Arendal, Norway and currently based in Berlin, the self-taught Gjennestad first garnered attention in 2001 with a series of oversized murals credited to the alias “Strøk,” which he still uses to differentiate his street art from the studio work he produces under his given name. His output frequently bridges the present and the past, intertwining men and women in contemporary apparel with the crumbling factory walls, rusted metal and decaying plasterwork textures their figures adorn.

He bases his cutouts on his own original photographs, painstakingly creates each stencil layer by hand in order to retain the essential humanity and kinetic energy of his source material; working with a sober color palette dominated by shades of gray, black and white, he juxtaposes contorted character postures with precise explorations of shadows and light, an approach that upends conventional notions of space and surface.

Gjennestad has won media attention and critical acclaim for murals in locales as diverse as Europe, Sumatra, Taiwan and Hawaii. He previously held solo shows in Norway, Denmark, Germany and France.

Solo show at Vertical Gallery: "Allies" November 7-28, 2020.
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