Bjarne Melgaard’s neo-expressionist style of painting first appeared in the 1990’s. His strong palette and vivid brushstrokes, has since, become his distinct painterly language. Melgaard’s oeuvre speaks of life in the margin, he investigates social, political, ideological, and sexual contents, often adding text as scribbles over and integrated with the painting’s figures and backgrounds. Bjarne Melgaard is not a political artist; however, his works are deeply rooted in his own experiences searching for identity and exploring life in the outskirts of societal acceptance. Melgaard has renewed the painterly tradition of his fellow countryman Edvard Munch, and with the same strength and angst, created a pictorial language that is elegantly rooted in expressionism as well as it being utterly his own.

Bjarne Melgaard, born 1967 in Sydney, currently lives and works in Oslo. Bjarne Melgaard studied at the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts, Oslo (1991) and later moved to the Netherlands to complete his studies at Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht (1992) and Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (1993). 

Bjarne Melgaard has exhibited at numerous institutions worldwide since the mid-nineties, among them are Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; MARTa Herford Museum, Hannover; Tbilisi Museum of Modern Art, Tbilisi; S.M.A.K, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent; Munch Museum, Oslo; Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo; Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin; Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London and Paris; Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York; Lars Bohman Gallery, Stockholm. He represented Norway at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011) and has also participated in the Whitney Biennial (2014), the Lyon Biennale (2000 and 2013) and XXIV Biennale de Sao Paulo (1998). In 2019, Bjarne Melgaard created his first virtual reality work My Trip with Acute Art, which was shown at the Julia Stoschek Foundation in Berlin.

Bjarne Melgaard’s work is in the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Saatchi Gallery, London; Acute Art, London; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Magasin III – Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm; Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö; Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo; Munch Museum, Oslo; Astrup Fearnely Museet, Oslo; Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, Tønsberg; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MARTa Herford Museum, Herford; Musées de Strasbourg, Strasbourg; Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki; S.M.A.K, Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent; among others.