The artist Karen Mølgaard stopped being afraid of colours

2022-09-27

Karen Mølgaard makes powerful abstract expressionistic paintings which take the mind of the viewer to nature with its different colours and expressions. To some, you invent your own story, meanwhile in others, you can discern certain details.

– When I stopped being afraid of colours, I was no longer cautious. I just plunged into it. Before, they were so very impressive to me, they blew me out of the window. 

Karen started drawing in the 90's. She took courses at Aarhus Kunstakademi in Denmark, and little by little she realized how much she had been longing to paint. 

– I learned the basics, but when I had done that for a while, I needed to liberate myself. It was too correct for me, so I needed to get off the rules and do it in my own way. 

Karen changes motifs all the time and constantly wants to develop.

– It’s an intuitive process. I go slowly along with the work, and I have to ask myself many times during the process where I want to go, and what is on my mind. I do what feels right and the painting will tell me the rest. When you have put the first line it starts living, when you go on, it starts talking back at you. It happens all the time, and if it doesn’t happen I get bored, and I know that I’m doing something that is not interesting. 

What inspires you?

– Whatever I meet, it can be the weather. It is very impressive what nature can do to us and it has been on my mind for a while now. Normally the sea and the shore are my kind of natural habitat, I live there, but this last year I have discovered the heath. Now it has taken my heart and the sky is just as high as by the seaside, which amazes me. The dark colours have become part of my palette now, as you see in my latest works.

For Karen, her deepest motivation is to find her own language. 

– To paint is a way for me to express what can be said simply and without a thousand words. That is why I paint, that is what art is to me. These days I am learning about the many different languages in the various expressions of visual art. I try to integrate them as part of my toolbox, which helps to make it clearer to me what kind of choices I must make while I work. So, I believe that I have enough training and studying to do for the rest of my life, as I go along with my artwork, making sure not to lose my intuition and sensitivity. 

Why is art important to you?

– It is hard work to paint, your are struggling and you get stuck, but finally you can feel and see the composition and the colours. It is not so much about the motifs for me, it is about when a painting comes together and says ’here I am’. When the painting agrees on the decisions I have made, that is happiness, I would say. 

In the future Karen would like to travel with her art. 

– The North is my country, my part of Europe but I don't know where my work is leading me. I am a bit curious to see if there is something more in the North or in the South among the mountains. I like to travel with my art and find a new audience. 

On the 1st and 2nd of April 2023 Karen Mølgaard will exhibit in Creative Mind, Øksnehallen Copenhagen.

See more of Karen Mølgaards art here!

Matilda Wirström

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