Aase Birkhaug

Q: Please explain to our readers why you are drawn to roses time and again?

A: I am drawn to them again and again because they are very beautiful, they smell good they look good all of them has their own history, and they represent different things in a historical philosophical perspective. I am drawn to them because they mostly represent love. Roses are nature and roses are a very beautiful part of the nature.

I am told that there are about 40.000 different Roses and Rose Spices in the world. As a physical therapeut and aa a painter I have been drawn to them, The Roses in many years now all back to year 1990. That was the year I started painting Roses.

Because of the symbolism the Roses represent I feel that Roses are the most universal flowers in the world, they are like Queens and Princesses in the Universe, in The Paradise.

Aase has been drawing and painting since she was 6 years old. Now completing painting in different media such as Aquarelle, Tempera, Gouache, Oil, Acrylics and Pastel.

Believing that surroundings can influence one’s health and mind, Painter and Physiotherapist Aase Birkhaug has combined her two passions by painting roses for a soothing effect.

Having fallen in love with flowers, nature and painting from early age, it was only natural to merge these factors together at some point, and by combining the aesthetic beauty of botany with her skills as a painter.

It is documented that colors have an effect on the sensory system, and some years ago I made the waiting room in my physiotherapy office into an exhibition for my paintings, so I discovered that it influenced the patients mental state.

The paintings are regularly described as very soft and mild. The color combinations used are tastefully and delicately fused to make a motif that can be described as very soothing to the eye.

Discovering several years ago that Roses have a positive effect on her, almost like healing, and the combination of the smell and the sight feels like a meditation, bringing about a certain calmness, this is something that reflects in the paintings.

Since march 2016 Aase has received 56 international art awards and art prizes. There are also publications as articles and books about her art published internationally as well in, Art Monaco, Canada, Italy, Germany, France, Middle East, Denmark, USA New York, Dubai Argentina and London In Aase’s family they have had several painters who have inspired her art work and inspired with painting and the paintings that have been painted during the years of her painting career.

To mention some names are the painter Anna Sofie Brunchorst Ibsen, the famous poet Henrik Ibsen, painter Harald Ibsen, painter Borghild Ibsen and prof dr med Conrad Birkhaug.

“ROMANCING the ROSE”

Norwegian artist Aase Birkhaug is inspired by Frida Kahlo who proclaimed: “I paint flowers so that they will not die.” Eternalizing and immortalizing the permanence of the floral kingdom, Ms. Birkhaug pays homage to the aesthetic beauty of roses. An emissary of nature, Ms. Birkhaug visually combines her physiotherapy training with her passion for flowers. Combining European and Asian influences into a rich and highly detailed art form, Ms. Birkhaug steps away from the trappings of our technological culture and recalls a time of sensorial depth and dedication to beauty in all of its forms.

Inspired by the psychological effects colors and imagery have on the mind, Ms. Birkhaug skillfully and deliberately combines her color palette and rose compositions to yield a calming effect for her viewers. “I discovered several years ago that roses have a positive effect on me, almost like healing, and the combination of the small and the sight feels like a mediation” she explains of her inspiration. Offering a voluptuous symphony of line and color, Ms. Birkhaug captures the essence of a classical still-life painting and transforms it into a re-imagined and extraordinarily compelling image. Striking in lushness of color, texture, line, and form, the result are rose paintings that are complex and weighty, while simultaneously sensuous. With a balanced sense of composition and keen sensitivity to light, Ms. Birkhaug creates images that capture the spirit of the Dutch masters, but then moves that spirit forward into the contemporary realm through a bold, expressive use of color and a modern take on texture and movement. Rendering forms through thick, energetic brush strokes to detailed lines and dynamic perspectives, Ms. Birkhaug’s paintings reveal a unique and powerful partnership of technique.

Emphatically utilizing the richness and the intensity of color, Ms. Birkhaug is adept at depicting the subtleties of of flowers, giving life to an arrangement of vividly hued flowers, as she endows each image with a depth and physical presence that thoroughly engage the viewer. Like O’Keeffe, much of her art is focused on the eternal mysteries hidden within the flower. Masterfully capturing the convergence of gesture, lines, shadows, and texture to create truly emotive works, her paintings are a reflection of the past as it is a portent of the future.

Stunning in its simplicity as it is compelling in its level of detail, Aase Birkhaug illustrates the beauty of her floral subjects in the minutia of visual details and the broad, overall atmosphere of each composition. Proficient in art media such as aquarelle, tempera, gouache, oil, acrylics, and pastels, Ms. Birkhaug’s quest for learning places her at the forefront of artistic innovation. Through her art, Ms. Birkhaug’s visual poetry is a message of serenity to the world with images that are refreshingly tranquil, reminding the viewer of the serene moments and vistas that perhaps still do exist if we but know where to look. Celebrated in both private and public collections in Europe and the U.S., Amsterdam Whitney Gallery is proud to shine the spotlight on this contemporary master!

Linkedin profile page : www.linkedin.com/pulse/healing-designaase-birkhaug/

Aase has published two books. The first book is called ARTISTIC VISIONS OF AASE BIRKHAUG,

NEW YORK 2017,

AMSTERDAM WHITNEY GALLERY, you can view this here https://issuu.com/ amsterdamwhitneygallery/docs/ artistic_visions_of_aase_birkhaug_i

The second book is called THE ROSE GARDEN AASE BIRKHAUG THE NORWEGIAN PAINTER OF FLOWERS

LONDON MARCH 2018,

ICAC , THE INTERNATIONAL CONFEDERATION OF ART CRITICS & MUSEI DI CHIANCIANO.

you can view that here https:// issuu.com/museodarte/docs/ aasebirkhaug-therosegarden

NATIONAL SPIRITUAL HEALING ASSOCIATION,

“Healing is gentle, simple and effective. We often search for the answers to our questions and believe the complicated answer to be the solution of the complicated question. It is not always that way, if we use the words of the English Association of Healers: Healing is gentle, simple and effective.”

Aase published the article Healing By Design - about Roses in november 2003 in the National healing Associations Magazine - Healing Today.