Interview
Thea Kiaer
Thea Kristine Tangen Kiær was born in London, England. She is a Norwegian visual artist based in Trondheim.
She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Early Childhood Education and Care from Queen Maud University College and University of Tromsø, Norway. She is also an interior designer by education, having studied at Høyskolen Kristiania, Oslo, Norway, and Thea is very interested in working with placing art into interiors.
Currently she is studying a BA (Hons) Painting at The Open College of The Arts, University for the Creative Arts, UK, as an online student. Besides being a visual artist, Thea works as a freelance art teacher, holding art courses in galleries. She is in the process of making her art courses digital, and creating a course-portal on her website. She also works as an Art Director for StrongBody.no.
Thea works very intuitively and spontaneously. Her paintings are both figurative and abstract, with strong and intense colors and harmonic and fragile expressions.
Thea has been part of several exhibitions, where her work has received much recognition. Art is something that has been in her family for a long time, with the world-renowned painter, Frits Thaulow, being her great, great grandfather.
What is your background and how did you start your journey in the art world?
“I started drawing and painting at a very young age. My desire to develop within the arts started when I attended a course on how to make a Byzantine icon at the age of fifteen. I learned the craft of the old icon tradition and found myself eager to learn more about art. I am not religious, but I love learning about art history and creating different artworks.
I took a one-year program as an art teacher at the University of South-Eastern Norway, Notodden, Norway, and worked part-time as an art teacher at a primary school in Trondheim, as well as an art mediator at Kunsthall Trondheim, Norway.”
What inspires you most?
“I find strong inspiration in exploring different artists on Instagram. I love that Instagram has become a platform for showing art to each other. I also enjoy going to physical exhibitions to be inspired by colors, technique and design language. As a mixed media artist, I like using different drawing and painting mediums, and combining these. I also find inspiration in researching other artists that are using the same technique as me. Being a spiritual soul, I also find much inspiration from the healing vibrations of crystals.”
“I mostly identify myself within spiritual art. A spiritual colorist, making healing pieces of art through delicate use of colors and compositions.”
What themes do you pursue? Is there an underlying message in your work?
“Some of the themes I enjoy touching on are life, death, love, and life after death. I hope my art can help people as they figure out themselves and their feelings. My aim is to visualize inner feelings, and hopefully people find comfort in that.”
How would you describe your work?
“Based in painting, drawing, printmaking, digital art, knit design, and mixed media techniques, I am exploring shapes, rhythms and colors to visualize human thoughts and emotions. I also inquire into societal issues and visualizing universal messages coming through to the canvas during meditation. I work very intuitively, creating what comes to me when I am in my creative flow. I’m currently into creating inner landscapes in alcohol ink and epoxy resin on large canvases. My paintings are in the intersection between figurative and abstract, with my focus mostly being on the human figure and face in my drawings.
Currently, I am in love with my soft pastels on Pastelmat paper, as I like the vibrant colors and lifelike expressions that this drawing medium allows me to create.”
Which artists influence you most?
“I find it hard to name just a few artists that influence me, because who I like and am influenced by depends on which medium I am working in at that particular moment, and that varies greatly. But currently, I am drawn to the works of Vebjorn Sand, Kesja Tabaczuk and Claude Monet.”
What is your creative process like?
"My creative process depends on which technique I am working in. When working with epoxy resin paintings, I work quickly and intuitively. But it is quite demanding because of the different mixtures of media such as epoxy, resin, acrylic ink and metal powder. I also have to wear much more protection like a filter mask, protective glasses, gloves, and have all my skin covered.
When working with alcohol ink, I still work very intuitively, but I have more time to make decisions regarding colors and composition. I’m always listening to music when painting, so the mood in the music is always affecting my process.
When drawing portraits or landscapes, I usually work from photos and these drawings, I feel, are more technical.”
What is an artist’s role in society and how do you see that evolving?
“The artist’s role in society is very important. We artists are good at asking questions about things, and reflecting on these ideas by visualizing our opinions in art. In this way, current themes are addressed in a versatile way, all of which help to influence our society.
What is different today from before is that we have become so digital oriented. Even though we are working on making physical products, the marketing of this online has escalated, and the visual expressions I experience have gained more space today than before. And this is very good! We also see that people with a creative background are also in the business world, since much of digital communication today is visual.”
Have you had any noteworthy exhibitions you'd like to share?
I am currently participating in these curated art books published by Bellamonti Art:
Nordic Art Guide 21/22, European Art Guide 2022, and World Art Guide 2023.I have also participated in the following group and solo exhibitions:
2022 - Group exhibition, A Journey to the Sense-Garden VR. I received the 3rd prize in the art competition for the research project on dementia in collaboration with NTNU and Akron Gallery, Trondheim, Norway. You can read about it here.
2021 - Solo Exhibition, Imagine, Gallery F48, Oslo, Norway. You can see more of it here.
- Solo Exhibition, Forms, Rhythms and Color, Det Øde Galleri, Røyse, Norway. Read about it here.
2020 - Solo Exhibition, The Human Mind, Gallery F48, Oslo, Norway. Read more about it here.
2019 - Group exhibition, Akron Gallery, Trondheim, Norway. Read more about it here.
- Group exhibition, The Illusion of Reality, Galleria De Marchi, Bologna, Italy. Read about it here.
Publication:
My work has been accepted for inclusion in the international art book, International Contemporary Artists Vol III, (2011) published in New York and Athens by ICA Publishing.”
