Many people ask me a question that sounds very natural:
“Do you paint to relax?”
I understand why people ask this.
For many, painting is a way to escape stress, to calm the mind after a long day.
But for me, the process works differently.
I don’t paint to relax.
I paint when I am already relaxed.
Painting begins only when there is space inside me —when life slows down, when my thoughts settle, when my breathing becomes quiet again. In those moments something shifts.
The world becomes softer. Light becomes more visible. And the sea, which surrounds this island where I live, begins to speak in its own quiet language.
Bornholm has a very special energy.
It is not loud or dramatic. It is subtle, almost whispering.
The rhythm of waves, the mist over the water, the changing light —
all of this slowly settles somewhere deep inside.
When I paint, I am not trying to reproduce what I see.
I paint what remains within me.
The horizon I paint is not the horizon in front of my eyes.
It is the one that appears when memory, intuition and atmosphere meet.
That is why painting cannot happen when my mind is restless.
It needs stillness.
It needs balance.
Only then can the image emerge naturally, almost as if it already existed somewhere —
waiting to appear on the surface. Painting is not my way of calming the storm.
It is what becomes possible after the storm has passed.
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