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The Norwegian photographer GT Nergaard (1968) started taking pictures at a young age. He saw photography as his calling and therefore went to study at the Brooks Institute of Photography in California in 1989. Here he laid a solid, highly technical foundation for his work. After his education, Nergaard returned to Norway, where he worked as a fashion, editorial and advertising photographer. Parallel to this he taught at The Norwegian School of Photography, which he co-founded in 2001.
In 2010, Nergaard left commercial photography entirely, to focus on his personal work. He realised that he had to find his way back to the reason why he had chosen photography in the first place and find his photographic identity. He found this identity at the crossroad between fiction and reality. Some of his images are observations, others are staged situations. He creates a narrative, inspired by events that are closely linked to his own life. The themes of youth, freedom and vitality are central to his work.
In his work, Nergaard always starts with the location as his main inspiration and builds the concept and stories from there. As he has always had a strong fascination for the sea and lakes, water is usually the main element in the location he chooses. As a Norwegian living far north, it is according to Nergaard difficult not to be influenced by nature, which is always very close and a dominant part of the country. In comparison with many other countries the contrast is enormous, both in landscape and climate. Winters are cold and long often without daylight, in contrast to bright summers where the sun never sets. In Nergaard’s opinion, this contrast adds something unique to the way northerners think and behave, which has influenced Nordic artists throughout all eras. Their passion for the sun is difficult to understand for someone who has not grown up in the cold north.
Nergaard's work is strongly influenced by Vitalism, the artistic impulse which made a strong impact in Nordic art in the years 1900-1930. Among artists who are connected to this impulse we find Edvard Munch and Gustav Vigeland, both representing a distinctive period in which the nude body, nature and health stood in the center, and the sun's cleansing power was one of the central themes. All these aspects are present in Nergaards work, in which the viewer can lose oneself.