By Keri Luiz
Assistant Editor

Sunday marks the one-year anniversary of the tragedy in Norway when a lone terrorist, Anders Behring Breivik, bombed a government building in Oslo before attacking a summer camp on the nearby island of Utøya, leaving 77 dead, including many children, and hundreds wounded.

On the eve of this grim anniversary, the U.S was hit with a tragedy of its own: Early Friday morning a gunman reportedly opened fire in a crowded theater in Aurora, Colo., killing at least 12 and injuring dozens more.

For Kari Brinck, a citizen of Norway and part-time Benicia resident, news of the latest tragedy hit hard.

“I really feel heavy and terrible for you. It’s terrible when you hear this news,” the artist said Friday by telephone from Copenhagen, Denmark. “It’s just unbelievable. It’s just crazy, the world is crazy.”

A member of Arts Benicia who shares space at a studio in the Arsenal, Brinck’s latest exhibit, which ended last month in Denmark, was inspired by the Norway massacre.

She remembers hearing the news while on vacation in Greece with her husband. “When this event happened, we were not in Norway, but we received news through our daughter,” she said. “It was very hard for me to grasp the reality of what happened.”

When she returned from Greece, Brinck was bombarded by news of the event while deciding what to paint next. “We were hearing every day the news,” she said. “Every day it was about this, and there was no way for me to get it out of my head.”

At the same time, she felt a strong sense of the unreal — a numbness, she said. “Had this really happened? It was hard for me to understand.”

A student of art therapy, Brinck decided to try to convey that numbness — that “no-feeling,” she said — in her art.

She thought she would do one painting to see if that “would make it more real,” then move on.

“I ended up painting 15 paintings. I had no idea I was going to paint so many, but it just went on and on. By the last painting I felt, ‘I am done now.’ I had completed something I had to do.

“I’ve always felt so privileged to be a citizen of such a small and safe country. It always felt like Norway was not a country where something like this would happen.”

Coping with that new reality, she painted. In her series, the largest painting was also the first: “77 Lives I,” at about 69 square inches, contains 77 colored “fragments” arranged on a grid.

The fragments symbolize lost lives; the lines are barrels of a gun. On a second layer, confined to a corner, a small headless figure represents the killer. “He is not supposed to be an important person in this painting. He has to be there, but he is totally headless,” Brinck said.

Though she says she’s done painting the greatest tragedy in modern Norwegian history, Brinck knows its impact will always be felt. “I think it really changed something, like 9/11 changed the U.S.”

“Every life lost in this way, is not acceptable. It is horrifying.”

To see more of Kari Brinck’s work, visit www.kbrinck.com.