Visual abstractions

Siri Berg knew what she wanted very early in life. When she was 6 years old she told her parents that she was firmly resolved to become an artist. 

  • Siri Berg, literally "home"
  • She was 19 years old with big dreams and expectations when she took a boat from Norway across the Atlantic Ocean.
    Siri Berg arrived to America in the 1940s, and her love for the country was so convincing that her parents eventually moved to the U.S. as well. Soon after her arrival, though, Siri experienced cutthroat competition, and for a few years she groped in the dark. First she started to work with fashion but soon decided it wasn't worth the drudgery. Instead, she began to work with interior and window displays. Not until she bought a studio in New York a few years later did she finally feel that she was home, literally.
    Today you still find the artist in her apartment and studio in Soho. Fine art is what she loves, and color and abstraction signify Siri's work—realism has never been her thing. Siri explained that her art symbolizes different abstractions, and she creates them by mixing and matching colors together.
    Siri Berg will feature at Embrace with ”Phases,” a series of paintings she created in 1974. Why the curator picked this series is unknown to her.
    "I guess the curator just liked it, and I do think the colors have sharp contrast to one another which suits the exhibition. Embrace is a wonderful thing and it discusses a global issue. You see it in the U.S. with the border fence between Mexico, as well as in Palestine," said Siri, emphasizing that Embraced focuses on immigration and acceptance, which the rest of the world should follow. "I haven't seen any exhibitions like Embrace, I'm very excited," she said.