I am Kristoffer Storjohann AKA Kristorn born in Norway the 18th of june 1972, under the sign of gemini.
A musician, artist, poet, guitarist on a journey, exploring the inner and outer world, made me a free thinker and a spiritual searcher.
Age 19, I left Norway never to look back.
I grew up on the norwegian countryside eating cherries off the trees in summer and skiing to school in winter. Only to be hurled into the grey rainy city of Bergen on the west coast at the age of 8.
My parents loved to travel, and Europe with the eyes of a child, I got an early taste for adventure. So in school I paid special attention in the languages courses so that I could have the freedom.
As long as I can remember, I loved to draw. It felt like a daydreaming. My parents were both academics, so there were tons of interesting looking books around. We had a big bookshelf in the stair case, and before I could read, I would sit on the stairs and treasure hunt for exciting images. I loved paintings of kings in their armors. The images of battlefields and soldiers fascinated me.
I got through school and the endless classes by drawing constantly in my schoolbooks. There was hardly a page without some doodle on it. Drawing soon became a skill that I felt quite confidence about.
I left for Spain in 1991 to study spanish and enrolled in the university of fine arts in Salamanca in 1993.
The art school was a disappointment to me, the teachers would preach resignation to the young art students who in turn would hustle to get better grades. That was a race I wasn’t interested in.
In 1997, ready for the big city with the fallen wall, I went to Berlin. To shake it up further, I attended the former DDR art school in east Berlin, Weisensee Kunsthochschule. This was a very different environment and one that was in upheaval. I loved being in Berlin as history was happening.
After getting my degree in 1999, I kept painting and giving classes at my studio in Berlin. Teaching was such an eye opening experience. I started to apply my own advice to myself, and it really changed the way I thought about the work.
When I realized that art was about finding yourself, I soon moved out of the studio and went back to drawing and sketching. Instead of trying to be impressive, I got back to how I used to draw when I was a kid. It felt good to take my power back
From the year 2000 onwards, apart from the frequent sketching, music now took up a greater part of my time. I began to study the guitar and musical theory from scratch. Learning about the laws of music was such a kick to me, I felt as if I was introduced into a secret club.
From 2004 to 2006 I studied sound engineering at the SAE Berlin.
I founded the silk print company “Stoff” with a partner in 2005 and worked as a guitarist playing in different groups in Berlin.
It was in 2010 that I started to see images in my head before falling asleep at night. I would dream of black and white paintings, and I would play around with them in my mind.
With this new style, I found a way of working that was natural and free flowing to me. With the absence of color I could let myself go, be chaotic and complex without losing control.
Also in music I became more confident and put out a full music album in 2013 called “69” . The design of the cover introduced some of my paintings and drawings. My second album “Sound Proof” came out in 2017.
In 2013 I moved back to Spain, and settled down in Madrid this time. There I got the opportunity to show my work in the Appa Art Gallery in 2017, and that was an incentive to paint more.
I am living and working in Madrid Spain at the moment.
Kristorn 2017