Sverre Wyller

Sverre Wyller was born in Oslo, where he received his art education from the National Art Academy, followed by the Hochschule der Künste in (West) Berlin, before moving to New York, where he lived and worked for several years. Wyller returned to Oslo in 1995 for a professorship in painting at the National Art Academy. Wyller’s main focus has been painting, collage and sculpture. In his early paintings he introduced figures simplified to a degree of pictograms. Wyller’s interest in infrastructure and its’ signs inspired his work with collage/décollage and the use of packing materials, sometimes by flattening found objects as grounds for paintings. His interest in merging painting and three-dimensional objects was followed by sculptural projects based on used construction steel, resulting in several large scale works and public commissions. Wyller’s recent paintings have been dominated by color fields executed with tempera in an almost fresco-like manner. His work is often grouped as a series, executed over several years, such as the Paterson Series where one identically sized collage/painting was made every fall over ten years, or the Miramichi Series, steel sculptures made on-site during the demolition of a former paper plant in New Brunswick, Canada. His public sculptures are characterized by their abstract and organic expression, such as the sculpture Allium at the Peder Balke-Senteret at Kapp, Norway. His public commission The Blue Station for Løren subway station in Oslo has an all-over color scheme, including a 30 m2 fresco. In 2024, Haugar Art Museum in Tønsberg presented a comprehensive retrospective exhibition with an accompanying monograph. Wyller is co-founder of the artist cooperative and occasional exhibition space K.O.S A (Krutthuset) located in Maridalen outside Oslo, where he resides and works. He has also spent working periods in Berlin and Belgrade in recent years. Wyller is represented in The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Haugar Art Museum, Tønsberg, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Malmö Art Museum, Malmö, Henie Onstad Art Center, Høvikodden, Stavanger Art Museum, Stavanger, Kode Art Museums, Bergen, and numerous private collections.