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A father’s gift of humor: surreal artwork for the times

Niwot artist David Bjorkman is just trying to make it through the pandemic like everyone else but hopes his artwork will help bring meaning — and laughter — to these times.
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David Bjorkman and his wall of art.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Rocky Mountain PBS and was shared via AP StoryShare.

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NIWOT – Artist David Bjorkman has fluctuated between painting, photography and now collage. After his daughter in the medical field had an unfortunate experience with a COVID-19 patient, Bjorkman decided to use his collage artwork to raise her spirits.

“COVID Dreams started because one of our daughters had a patient cough on her who tested positive the next day,” Bjorkman says.

“I made my first collage. I remembered a crazy looking inverted wok that this guy had on his head, and then I cut out tiny different viruses and that was my anti-virus deflector hat."

“I gave that to her because gentle humor can be healing," Bjorkman says. "She laughed about it and so we were able to transfer that from something really heavy to something lighter.”

Bjorkman says that humor is his way of dealing with the horrid effects that COVID-19 has had on the world and his family.

“I have to translate something into humor, that's how I cope,” he says. “That humor came from my father. He, one of my sisters, and I would get together and take off someplace just laughing.”

2021_01_19_LL_COVID_dreams2"Self portrait wearing my Covid-19 Deflector Hat" by David Bjorkman. By Rocky Mountain Public Media
The COVID Dreams series is made up of figures from the late 1800s to early 1900s, coinciding with the last global pandemic, and Bjorkman says that’s done purposely.

“We are going through a 100-year pandemic,” Bjorkman says. “Consequently, I'm using images from around the time of the previous pandemic. I have a large library of different woodcuts that are from the 1890s.”

The artwork was also shared with his daughter's medical team.

“I made a collage for her and her clinic, that they hung up in her clinic, and at the end of the year they presented it to two of their top students,” Bjorkman says.

Bjorkman has future plans for the collage series, perhaps turning it into a book or animated series.

2021_01_19_LL_Covid_dreams 3The collages are made from a collection of 19th and 20th century woodcuts. By Rocky Mountain Public Media
“I would like to think of something else, you know a video or something, like to have some of the images- their hands go up (and down),” he says. “We have received inquiries from museums, putting together their COVID experiences.”

Bjorkman is just trying to make it through the pandemic like everyone else but hopes his artwork will help bring meaning — and laughter — to these times.

Learn about Bjorkman's evolution from painting, to photography — and how the COVID Dream collage series began when his photography travel plans were interrupted by the virus — in a video here.