This autumn I was awarded a month-long residency by Creative Kernow and Krowji Studios, based at Krowji in Redruth, Cornwall. The residency offered something invaluable: time, space, and scale. It gave me the freedom to work ambitiously and to begin a substantial new body of work for an upcoming solo exhibition planned for Spring 2026.
Working at Krowji allowed my practice to expand physically and emotionally. The studio space made it possible to paint at a scale that feels essential to how my work holds energy and feeling. Over the month I completed six large paintings, including five works measuring approximately 150 x 100 cm, and my largest work to date, The Mountain Holds Us (180 x 240 cm).
The Mountain Holds Us depicts Mother Mountain holding her children as one figure comforts the other. They mirror one another, suspended in a moment of shared vulnerability and care. Duality is a recurring theme in my work, existing in two emotional extremes at once, and here that tension is softened by the presence of the mountain. The figures are not left alone to struggle but are held, protected, and accepted. The mountain itself references my Norwegian heritage and my own inherited relationship to landscape through my mother.
As part of Krowji’s Christmas Open Studios, I opened my space to visitors. Welcoming people into the studio was a powerful extension of the residency, allowing me to share my process openly and to show the works while they were still charged with the immediacy of making.
This residency has been a formative moment in my practice, one rooted in scale, generosity, and connection. I’m deeply grateful to Creative Kernow and Krowji Studios for making it possible.
