Biography
EDVARDA BRAANAAS is a Norwegian artist based in Oslo and Los Angeles who has a distinctive pop culture visual language with devotion to art history, illustration and design.
edvarda began her career as an artist in Venice, italy in the 80s, followed by a master in painting at the Norwegian Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo.
Later she achieved a BA degree in art history at the University of Oslo. edvarda lived and worked in Los Angeles in the period 201o-2019, where she was actively involved in the city's art scene.
After a brief period in abstract painting under the influence of her professor Irma Salo Jæger, she orientated herself towards a stylized figurative technique and a dedication to storytelling.
edvarda is fascinated by the distinction between high art and pop culture. She actively draws on references to art history and adapts these to her own contemporary compositions.
In Los Angeles, she found the perfect environment to further explore her artistry:
- To immerse myself in an environment and a city that consists to such a remarkable degree of a patchwork of subjective and selective realities, and where the local culture seems to encourage an endless flux of variable identities and artificiality, is a modern privilege. This in turn strengthens my own ability to penetrate deeper into the classic and natural beauty. Today it's all about "owning" the terms of what beauty is, and I can't imagine a place more suited to study this than Los Angeles.
Regaining the power to define how women are portrayed in art and the media is a recurring theme in Edvarda's art. By painting women on their own terms.
