Oddleif Bang

After working 35 years as a house painter, Oddleif Bang is now a full-time artist. Bang is self-taught and an exponent of outsider art, that is art made by someone who is not formally trained as an artist and/or who lives on the margins of society. In 1974 Bang began to paint with marker pens, and ten years later he also discovered acrylic painting. Bang’s works are often colourful collages where experimentation and playfulness are a common thread. Rife with surrealism, dreamlike images, and humour, these works are often called “fairy-tale pictures” by children. The artist himself explains his idiosyncratic style as the result of him just being himself. “If I never become a Van Gogh,” he says, “maybe I will one day become a Bang Gogh.”  
Bang has held several exhibitions, such as at Trafo Kunsthall, and he has been acquired by the Outsider Art Street Gallery at Sør-Troms Museum, which seeks to make art more diverse and inclusive. Bang is displaying three works at the opening exhibition. The works have been selected in collaboration with Trastad Samlinger and Sør-Troms Museum. MGA