Synvis Glinn Nordin

According to Synvis Glinn Nordin, “My paintings are created during the journey of my life. There are three essential organs: my eyes and what they have seen, my ears and what they have heard, and my soul and my experiences with people in the global world’s beliefs and cultures.” 
Nordin paints figures and events from the city of his birth, Tromsø, and all manner of fantastical stories and fantasies from history and from places he has never visited. In the large-scale painting Heksebrenning (‘witch burning’), there is a lot going on. An intoxicated king seems to struggle just to stay upright, while a priest sentences people to burn at the stake. Behind the priest we see a sick figure reading from the Bible, while a soldier leads a man in a kirtle and chains towards the flames. Nordin depicts the witch hunt of the Sami people and Sami culture. Two figures in Sami clothes ask for mercy and try to stop the madness, with a female figure already burning at the stake. Not all of Nordin’s depictions are as dramatic as this one, but he paints a chaotic world where we constantly face temptations and challenges. GH