Elias Forberg: Leilighet 402, Maridalsveien
"Is pain the only real feeling? Everything else is just thoughts", 2025
150x120cm, Airbrush and oilpastel on canvas
With uncompromising honesty, Elias Forberg (b. 1993) invites the audience into an uncomfortable yet profoundly human space. His paintings are raw, direct, and unfiltered — an exploration of shame, addiction, self-destruction, and the invisible rituals that shape us in secrecy.
The exhibition moves through the most intimate rooms of Apartment 402 — the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom — places where the boundaries between private and public dissolve, and where the personal resonates with a universal tone. Forberg confronts taboos without disguise. His works carry a tension between repulsion and attraction, between what suffocates and what drives — leaving no one indifferent.
Using mixed media and fragments from his own diaries, Forberg exposes both fear and vulnerability. Inspired by Norwegian black metal, folklore, and a deep inner unrest, he creates a visual language where beauty and brutality intertwine. The result is not redemption, but an inevitable reminder that true understanding often emerges from the ruins.
Forberg offers no easy answers, no salvation or hope — only the sharp edges of reality. The exhibition is a challenge, a mirror, and an invitation to confront what we would rather turn away from.
With uncompromising honesty, Elias Forberg (b. 1993) invites the audience into an uncomfortable yet profoundly human space. His paintings are raw, direct, and unfiltered — an exploration of shame, addiction, self-destruction, and the invisible rituals that shape us in secrecy.
The exhibition moves through the most intimate rooms of Apartment 402 — the kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom — places where the boundaries between private and public dissolve, and where the personal resonates with a universal tone. Forberg confronts taboos without disguise. His works carry a tension between repulsion and attraction, between what suffocates and what drives — leaving no one indifferent.
Using mixed media and fragments from his own diaries, Forberg exposes both fear and vulnerability. Inspired by Norwegian black metal, folklore, and a deep inner unrest, he creates a visual language where beauty and brutality intertwine. The result is not redemption, but an inevitable reminder that true understanding often emerges from the ruins.
Forberg offers no easy answers, no salvation or hope — only the sharp edges of reality. The exhibition is a challenge, a mirror, and an invitation to confront what we would rather turn away from.
