Dance is a language of its own. I think it's important to take nonverbal modes of expression seriously. Each medium has something unique that it manages to express on a deep level, and sometimes it hits us with immediacy even though it's multidimensional. I danced a lot as a child and youth, then somehow stopped during my studies. When I lived in Berlin between 2017 and 2020, I started dancing again for the joy of it and befriended ballet dancers, DJs, and ravers alike. It meant a lot to me to have space to develop movement, love for music, interconnection, style, and joy. I don't go out to dance as much now, but I made this silly hashtag some years ago, #consdance123, on Instagram where I post dance videos that are more like a ritual before I begin to paint.

Berlin was important for me to feel free, find my style, and connect with very special friends. I had studied for seven years in a row and spent the last four years in New Haven and New York before returning to Europe. I needed not only to be in my head but also to remember the body and nourish movement and spirit. I enjoyed seeing people's movements, attitudes, and way of putting clothes together, and also being wary of mind control, not submitting to every policy, sometimes turning off the phone, having plenty of queer spaces, and prioritizing presence and freedom. Back then, Berlin felt more progressive than a lot of places.

I've created wallpaper with Wallpapers By Artists, a rug with Layered, shoes with Trippen, tracksuits for YME, and an artist edition of scarves and opera gloves for the MUNCH museum. I've decorated Hotel Revier and the restaurant Savage and painted the facade of the building Torggata Bad in Oslo. My work is multi-layered and can be appreciated by different audiences. All of these collaborations have been exciting, but my core practice needs to stay protected from other people's ideas or visions. I need to go deep into research, have sharp conversations, experiment with forms, shapes, and material, and go where the work needs me to go. I follow a mix of intuition, curiosity, desire, and light.

My introverted side finds captivating moments in books, and the extroverted side finds them in real life - the dance floor, the dinner party, the opera entrance, the subway, the street. A lot of the time, what makes it interesting is how these elements come together. In the scrolls that I have been looking at lately, there are a lot of beautiful transitions. In painting, there is a lot happening at once. There's what I am trying to say, the storytelling, but then the rhythm and the pace and the composition and the color in motion become their own thing, together with the more unconscious elements. Ultimately, we're left with a mood or a feeling.

Not really

The paintings have ended up in some exciting collections, like the Kistefos Museum and Fundación AMMA, and with the Rubells and Beth DeWoody. One painting is also in the Norwegian Parliament. I always want to keep growing as a painter. I’m glad they’re seen and enjoyed and taken seriously. One thing that was really good for my painting practice was sharing studios with the wonderful painter Eva Beresin for three months in Vienna in 2022, thanks to the generosity of Miryam Charim. There was a special energy in that former bread factory, where we both painted works that were wider than three meters. It’s a good feeling to lock in and paint. To be immersed in it.

It is. I love big cities for allowing so many interactions with strangers, where it’s easy to be a lot or to be weird or fierce and still oscillate between feeling visible and invisible. I love a bit of flair and drama and a look and a wink and a comment. It’s fun to read a Kathy Acker book, for example, where outfits and gossip are part of the story.

I bought a knife in Tokyo