Marits art gives the forest a sense of humanity

2022-11-11

With ink and pencils, Marit creates her carefully detailed black and white paintings. The inspiration for her art comes from nature, and the paintings lets the viewer take part of the peacefulness that rests within the forest, and almost lures your eyes to search for mythical creatures among the branches of the trees.

– To me the forest is a place of peace. It’s almost meditative to walk into a forest, you get a chance to collect yourself and relax. I think the forest is incredibly important for us in a society where we are surrounded by so much technology, and there are so many requirements in pretty much everything. In my paintings I want to give the forest a sense of humanity.

Marit creates her art in her atelier in her home south of Oslo. And it was there that the first black and white trees took their shape. 

– Before the pandemic my paintings were more colorful and abstract. But when everything shut down and you had to stay at home, confined to your own house, that’s when I started studying the forest. At home we have an open floorplan and because everyone in my family was here, I put earplugs in and just studied the forest.

Marit works with big canvases, often many at the same time. On paper, canvas or untreated sailcloth, she does sketches before she brings out the black ink. With canvases over 1,5 meters in diameter, she paints using her whole body.

– When I work with paintings this large, I nail up the canvas and whan I draw I try to take a step back every now and then. I like that, when I work with art this big, it’s a physical thing. I can’t sit down, I have to use my whole body.

Her motives comes to life by several intricate lines built up layer by layer. In her paintings, it’s not only the ink that’s in focus, the white spaces between the branches are just as important. 

– My focus is to create space and work with the light. What happens inbetween the lines are important. I build it up, line by line, layer by layer. There is a certain rythm in it too.

Sometimes, color finds it’s way in to her paintings too. In “Små Gleder” there are elements of a warm, yellow light that softly finds it’s way between the sharp contrast of the trees. An idea that came to life after Marit had been on a walk, a sunny winter day. 

– Just like the title says it’s about the small joys in life. The painting is representing the feeling I got from the light when I was on that walk. The snow was melting and the sun put a golden light over everything. I took that light and put it in my painting as a symbol, a reminder of the joy that exist within these small things all around us.

When Marit isn’t painting in her atelier, she works as a teacher at a private art school. Being a teacher not only means that Marit gets to share her knowledge with the students, her conversations with the students also gives her valuable inspiration for her own work.

– To meet other people and to work with inspiring others is in itself, inspiring to me. To talk about art in that kind of context and create together, is fantastic. 

Marit has had many art exhibitions, and has many more to come. During the fall of 2022 she’s working on paintings that will be exhibited during spring 2023.

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