How did you get started as a painter?

I have always made drawings and, since my early youth, also erotic drawings; however, I didn’t get started as a painter until 2000 when my husband put up an easel in our stable. I’ve been devoted to it ever since - hook, line and sinker - and today it’s an urge for me to paint.

Do you take inspiration from within yourself or from the outside world?

I don’t need a dramatic input to get inspired. Everyday life is wonderful. The joys of everyday life are precious and that joy is my fuel. I take inspiration from my surroundings... the atmosphere, conver-sation with friends, a stroll down the shopping streets or a visit at a nightclub where I absorb visual impressions - and music. I may also suddenly get inspired by a certain sentiment.

Joy is your fuel... it sounds almost like a rapture?

It is indeed! I paint neither on frustration nor anger, quite the reverse. I think that it’s a prejudice that you can surmount at crisis through creativity. I for one need equilibrium to paint. It is essential to me that I’m in balance... body and soul.

So erotic art requires foreplay?

High-quality always requires foreplay. It takes a lot of stamina to paint, but I can be rather persistent when I set myself to do something.

Do you meet prejudice against your paintings?

People may read anything they like into my works, and I can’t help it if some find my paintings on the verge of pornography. I don’t mind fluttering the dovecotes a bit, and I welcome both positive and negative response. I’m absolutely thrilled when people buy my works, not just because the colours match the sofa, but because they are moved by a particular painting.To me there is a fine line between erotic art and pornography. Eroticism is stimulating and emotion-ally refreshing. Pornography seems fake, without empathy, and you only get a brief impact, if any. Erotic art, on the other hand - whether it’s photo art or a painting – leaves room for afterthought.I know that many of my works hang in the living room, in the very centre of everyday life. And it pleases me to learn that some of my customers actually display my paintings in their firms.
When it gets too cold to paint in my summer atelier I work in my dining room, but very few guests ask me to turn the front away from the dinner table.

What can make you blush?

Nothing, I’d say. But it’s extremely important to me that the people I invite to a new exhibition know what they are going to see. That way they accept stepping into my world, experiencing my works and how I express myself. But I do feel shy when the viewer and I both are taken by surprise. Like when my gardener comes in for a cup of coffee when I’m right in the middle of working with one of my more taboo-breaking paintings... well, just the thought makes me smile wryly, and I know that he hides a smile too.

Do you have a role model?

I’m my own master, but there is in fact an artist whose courage I admire, and that is Gerda Wegener who lived from 1885 to 1940. Her sensual and candid female portraits shocked the respectable citizens
here in Denmark, so she settled in the more open-minded Paris.

She’s a kindred spirit?

Not artistically, no – we use very different techniques. She preferred watercolours or red chalk, while I primarily use oil paint. But she was indeed a very brave woman, both in her private life and as an artist. I am spellbound by artists like Francis Bacon, Gustav Klimt, Lucian Freud and my fellow countrymen Kurt Trampedach and Michael Kvium. I greatly admire the way they paint human forms... bodies and skin... it simply gives me the shivers.

Does it still take courage to paint erotic art?

Indeed it does! Theoretically everybody is free to portray anything, but some people obviously still find erotic art rather decadent. Since we have our precious freedom to express ourselves it gives one food for thought that it is so.

What kind of response do you get as an artist?

My paintings leave room for interpretation and each viewer sees something different. I would like to hear all the comments because it really fascinates me to learn what other people make out of my paintings. A woman saw for example phallic symbols which I’m pretty sure I didn’t “hide” – at least not deliberately. In my experience women has a more thoughtful attitude towards my paintings. I think that the mode of expression – visual communication – moves them in a way they hadn’t expected. Not from erotic art, anyway. Men tend to have a more direct approach to my paintings.

Have you changed as an artist since you started?

I feel more free today –more daring – maybe because I allow myself more liberty. But the female world and the sensuality are still my main motives. My working process has changed quite a bit, though. In the beginning I drew up sketch after sketch before I started painting on canvas. Today I draw only a few sketches after contemplating on the motive. Then I contact my models and we meet for a photo session where I test some of my ideas as regards composition, light and shadows. When I receive my thumbnails... there may be hundreds... I decide on one or two motives and make a rather loose sketch on canvas. When my work is in progress I sometimes have another session with the model because I may need his or her help to solve a problem.

Are you changing course?

I can see a development in my latest works. There is more movement, more storytelling. I’ll definitely cultivate that...

Do you have a mission?

Erotic art is an artistic niche and I would love to see it expand. I recently joined an international association of artists who portray erotic art. This network is global and strong, and I hope that our enthusiasm and joint efforts will result in well-attended exhibitions all over the world... we are well on the way.I call my art Bedroom-Art, and I want to contribute to making Bedroom-Art just as widespread as Pop-Art and Street-Art has succeeded to become.Innovatory art always start as some sort of subculture, but if it is high-quality that subculture will become mainstream, like it happened with Pop-Art which emerged in the wake of modernism as a rising against elitist art.Street-Art – graffiti – was regarded as pure vandalism a few years ago. Today it is highly appreciated, and I hope that Bedroom-Art will gain the same acknowledgement. Right now I feel an increasing interest and demand, but it takes guts to go the whole length.