Pink Tanker: the story of the pink tank

A pink tank on a green background. Pink Tanker has become one of the motifs people recognise Brurock by. This is the story of how a former soldier in the Armoured Battalion started painting tanks pink.

From crutches at Setermoen to the Armoured Battalion

I was called up for national service and simply got hooked on the military. In 2008 I started the selection for the long-range reconnaissance squadron, but ended up with a stress fracture. Suddenly I was sitting at Setermoen on crutches, wondering what would happen next. I stayed on crutches all the way to field week, made it through and started NCO school.

After that I joined the Armoured Battalion as a squad leader. After a few years in the battalion I worked as a recruitment officer for the Army NCO School, and my last position was assistant operations officer there. It was the camaraderie that kept me there, and the feeling of being useful, because I always have loads of energy.

In 2016 I left the Armed Forces to become a full-time artist. It was a big change. In the military I had a secure framework and a stable income.

First exhibition: Galleri A, December 2016

Pink Tanker (115 × 70 cm) was one of five pictures I showed at my very first exhibition, the “A-laget” Christmas show at Galleri A in Oslo in December 2016. The gallery gave me a whole wall, and I used it to show different materials and techniques, together with Fasaden, Hello, Brainiac and Brain Fart. 35 artists exhibited that Christmas.

The next summer the tank was back. In “A-laget – Summer Selection 2017” it was a pink tank that represented me in the gallery’s catalogue.

From canvas to wall

The tank quickly moved from canvas to concrete. One of the first things cruise passengers saw when they came ashore was a large pink tank painted on the wall of the cruise terminal.

The technique is the same as in much of my work: stencils and spray paint, often with a little glitter at the end.

Glitter is underrated.

“Pink Tanker” in Forsvarets forum

In July 2017 the armed forces magazine Forsvarets forum ran a profile of me titled “Pink Tanker”. It described the pink tank on a green background as one of the motifs that define me as an artist. By then my pictures had been bought by everyone from a single mother in Trondheim with no connection to the military to the commander of the Armoured Battalion.

I’m always fascinated that people want to pay for something I’ve made.

The tank lives on

Pink Tanker was the start of much of what I have since made for and about the Armed Forces. Read more in Street art in the Armed Forces: pink tanks and a royal visit. Want a pink tank on your wall? Get in touch.