The Art Of Kari Elisabeth Haug

As an artist constantly working, evolving and producing painter and artist extraordinary Kari Elisabeth Haug establishes herself once again as an artistic force to be reckoned with. A powerful painter Haug’s overture places her with the likes of  Alberto Giacometti, Lynne Frehm and Helen Frankenthaler. Yet, while Haug’s paintings have the swirling energy of many great abstract expressionist painters, they also suggest something quite different: the murmuring of numerous voices beneath each layer. The artist’s work has changed greatly over the years, and is seldom truly abstract.

 She courageously goes beyond the given and familiar, pioneering new techniques and materials in order to expand her own vision. Many of Haug’s works are exemplary of her penchant for monolithic, eccentric, dynamic forms, and bursts of emotion. Her art is impulsive but not violent—and more seductive than confrontational. Haug's works don’t want to assault you, but suck you into their oceanic swirl, carry you along for the ride. The magic emerges in the tension between control and spontanety, and the result is invariably surprising, open-ended, poetic, and spiritual. In the majority of works the artist creates an explosion of color. A master of color, Haug is equally adept in her use of pure white. In "Kjærlighetsbåndet (meaning The Knob of Love)" and “The Circle of Life” Haug uses white to both invade and neuter the surrounding cacophony of colors, the artist’s intent is to block out the outside world in order to give the viewer space in which to roam freely.                     


Born into Norway, Haug was raised in an environment with a strong emphasis on music, literature, astrology, and the arts. Haug studied teaching, focusing her attentions toward literature, music, nature and outdoor activities, playing the piano and writing poetry. Still based in Europe Kari Elisabeth Haug has shown her paintings around the world, including The Oslo Art fair and the Florence Biennale. Shifting between two approaches—Devine Abstraction, and Romantic Expressionism—her oeuvre is compelling in its diversity. Her painterly approach revolves around the uncovering the spirit of each color. She paints intuitively, instinctually coloring her canvases in bright palettes of brilliant hues. Inspired by the natural world, she infuses her works with a Zen-like spirit of harmony and balance. In fact, it is this kind of spirituality that motivates her work. According to Haug, her work acts as an interface between the physical and spiritual realms, and inspires healing and transformation of the soul. Many viewers of her work have even commented on a kind of energetic vibration that one may feel when absorbing one of her works. “The term is intuitive, often abstract. I am looking for a different reality than the sensuous reality around us,” Haug says. “I'm on the hunt for something else, a power, a source is a mystery I know I am a part, but I still can not quite comprehend”. 

Certain works evokes a sense of vibrational fields of energy. Reminiscent of the intense cave paintings, as well as some of the abstract designs in the paintings of British artist Cecily Brown, like automatic drawing, the images resonate with a profound sense that the subconscious soul has been manifested in color and form. In "Landet bakenfor/The land beyond" and "The Vision", Haug portrays landscapes so simplified that they have been reduced to lines upon the horizon that is divided into distinct color fields- subtly blended streaks of shimmering color. This minimalist reduction is effective in its simplification of form, which like Platon’s ideal forms, function not as reality, but as an archetype of the land and sky which reside deep in our collective unconscious, as well as a representation of our deep connection with the earth. “The shape and composition is open, which symbolizes life and the individual who is in the process of constant development and change. It is the desire to focus on the power and energy every human being possesses,” Haug says.

This could not be truer, and we have Haug to thank for bringing the spirit of her visionary world into ours. Haug finds her ideology in the deep contours of creation. It is her acute love and understanding of color, composition, and positivity that lends comparisons to Picasso, Edvard Munch, Rothko, and Chagall.

Employing a strongly stylized painting method, the work is distinguished by layered shapes and elegant color. The artist’s figurative narratives are distinguished by dynamic, undulating, and lyrical brushstrokes combined with curved “whiplash” lines of syncopated rhythm. Charismatic and forceful, Haug’s use of seductive color, vibrant brushwork, and sinuous line highlight the development of the artist’s sense of freedom and her unique style. The tie linking Haug’s work is her overwhelming sense of fluid organic shape and swelling curvaceous line work, and her succulent approach to applying paint on canvas. Color and form undulate in florid feminine compositions that depict subjects ranging from shimmering, blossoming landscape, to delicately rendered dream-like visions. Haug’s strength of vision and personal style always resonate deeply within the recesses of the viewer’s heart and imagination. 

Written by Art Historian Persis May Singh, New York, December 2011