SYMBIOSIS

Most of my artwork, are about people. People relating to others. Holding each other. Looking at each other. Communicating. Sharing or struggling with one another. With a precise feeling in their facial expressions. Their bodies are often entwined in each other, not knowing where one begins and where the other ends. It can be sensual, and at times erotic. It can also be disturbing. Faces can share the same eyes, or the same mouth. But the most important is the feeling of “addition”. What we add to our personalities. To our souls. The connection. We influence each other. Good and bad. We cannot stay untouched. We become a bit like the one we observe and feel, the one we touch, embrace, make love too.  That is what I reveal. The narrative is there, but not at the front. I want the viewer to enter my emotional landscape and find their own resonance. That is why I call this world SYMBIOSIS. We immerse ourselves in each other from birth to death — through empathy, observation, conflict, desire.

Symbiosis is at the heart of being human. Yet in our age loneliness spreads. Technology is one cause, but so is a culture of vanity. The selfie culture. Narcissism as emotional masturbation. The opposite of symbiosis. My work shows both.

I have painted and drawn since I am seven years old. I have never stopped. There hardly goes a day in my life, when I don’t open a book to draw, create a watercolour, or study the work of an artist. I also have two comic strips that narrates the events of my life or my views on societies and politics. They are satirical. 

I grew up between Beirut and Tehran in the 60s and 70s. My mother, a journalist and painter, ran a salon in our Beiruti home in Zarif for artists, musicians, and writers. She raised ten children. From that world I learned I was part of something larger than myself — a universe of creativity and love. The Lebanese civil war took it in 1976. We lost everything and fled. Rebuilding in Greece, France, and finally Norway was not easy. But the love and joy of those early years taught us never to give up hope. Friendship, the women I shared my life with, and above all parenthood shaped me. The love that binds us. This personal journey is what I paint. Symbiosis. Because we are never just ourselves..

Bruce Parramore

Oslo 18 August 2025