Artist Kenneth Blom was born in 1967 in Norway. Kenneth Blom belongs to a generation of artists who graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo in the early 1990's. He went to class with, among others, Bjarne Melgaard. At this time, the academy and the art community in Oslo were characterized by conflict between a classical figurative and a conceptual postmodern direction in the arts. On one side was the Nerdrum School, led by Odd Nerdrum, with demands for good craftsmanship and respect for the classical painting traditions. On the other, advocates stood for a more theoretically inspired approach to art, where the idea and reflection around the artwork stood strong. Blom explored painting as a combination of these. An important inspiration was Professor Stian Grøgaard's notion that one could use a figurative language without using the classic, figurative vocabulary.