Mia Gjerdrum Helgesen (f. 1971) have degrees from Oslo National Academy of the Arts ( SHKS) , Westerdals of Commercial art Oslo and the Academy of Art, Academy of Art San Francisco. In 2018, she was awarded residency at Mana Contemporary in NYC. The artist works with painting on canvas and wood, graphics (lithography, monotopy and woodcuts), textiles and sculpture. Graphic has a great place in her artistry.
The art can be described as the resonance of the very moment or emotion that describes the theme. The artist works specifically with the experience of the moment and the feeling a state of mind gives you. She wants the experience of the abstract / semi-abstract works to be a journey through layers of experiences that give a feeling and echoing one can carry with them.
Gjerdrum Helgesens’s floating abstractions in her works reflects the human sense of undefined existence often seek the path of their own identity. Isolated from his ego and influenced, veiled and absorbed by the demands of society in contrast to the inner life of the mind. She works in many layers of paintings over time. Each process includes building the structure and design that will slip through the senses and the feelings that captures the emotion and the moment.
These original woodwork paintings are inspired by a new innovation of the traditional woodcut printmaking process that I have fallen in love with. This is the woodcut printing process most known in Norway as the innovation by Munch. Her works are original paintings made out of wood plates and are created by spending hours carving and painting layers on layers. These works are her way of honoring and taking the tradition further by creating my own innovation, the contemporary wood relief painting, which is inspired by the Norwegian nature, heritage, and the old woodcut tradition.
“These works are my way of honoring and taking the tradition further by creating my own innovation, the contemporary woodrelief painting, which is inspired by the Norwegian nature, heritage, and the old woodcut tradition”
