Mr Monkeybusiness in New York, 2023

Bente Halvorsen  

I am Bente Halvorsen, born and raised in Bergen, on the west coast of Norway.

I started painting about 20 years ago, when my family and I lived in Spain for a year. During this year I attended a course with a Swedish painter and learned his techniques. My first painting tools were homemade tempera, pigment powder mixed with eggs, milk and even beer.

Back in Norway, I continued to paint, and explored both oil and acrylic paint on larger canvases. In 2012, a friend also became my colleague, when we started whatELSEisnew. There we have a studio, as well as walls to display our art and also the interest in reuse. We have and have had workshops for groups and companies, where my colleague and I guide them through the painting processes on large canvases. Recently, I have started painting courses for smaller groups, and find it interesting and inspiring to teach the participants different techniques and how to build up a painting, step by step. Back in Spain many times, and in 2019 the family built a finca surrounded by thousands of orange trees. I got my own studio, "Entre mil naranjos", and now live half the year in Spain. Here there are opportunities for countless mountain hikes, and by being observant on the hikes, I get a lot of inspiration and new ideas for new paintings constantly emerge. My subjects in my paintings vary from nature to faces, as well as abstract. I want to have the opportunity to paint what I feel at any given time.