Before the Entrance

Foran inngangen (2008)

Mixed media on red paper
Sigurd Bergmann

In Foran inngangen — Before the Entrance — Sigurd Bergmann explores a dreamlike world of symbolism, desire, and mystery. Painted in 2008, this surreal composition centers on a radiant seashell resting at the edge of a crimson sea, cradling a nude figure within. A dark silhouette — perhaps a watcher, a dreamer, or Sigurd himself — stands at the threshold, gazing at the scene.

The vibrant red paper saturates everything: sea, sky, land. The seashell glows like a threshold between realms — womb-like, mythic, echoing Botticelli’s Birth of Venus but with a raw, personal intensity. A white gull arcs in flight, and a distant sailboat drifts under a pale moon, suggesting movement, passage, or longing. The figure inside the shell lies relaxed, but distant — unreachable, encased in light.

This piece is more than a composition — it is a portal. A meditation on beauty, distance, and the eternal human pull toward the unknown, the divine, or the unattainable.