ARTIST PROFILE
POPPYKALAS
Thilde Maria Houkohl Kristensen
What is your typical day like?
I generally spend a quiet morning at home with my family. After my children have left for school, I always take a dip in the sea. It resets me and connects me with nature. Then I cycle to my studio in Frederiksberg, where I paint my oil paintings. Sometimes my days are more frantic - if I have meetings or large-scale installations and projects involving life flowers, or a book deadline. But overall, the initial description stands.
Describe your studio
It’s located on Frederiksberg Allé close to Sankt Thomas Plads with the most beautiful old fountains. It’s on a corner with large, round windows facing the avenue, where there are beautiful, green trees for most of the year. It is high ceilings - four metres high, to be precise. And it’s painted in some of my favourite colours: pink, violet and dark burgundy. Hanging from the ceiling are small flower petals on fishing line. They hover like a little floral sky. It started as a showroom for my flowers with elegant peach, pink and blue curtains and a pink concrete floor. But, since I started painting, it’s become more like a workshop. There’s paint everywhere. It used to be a shop, so you can walk up a little set of steps to a back room that I use as an office. There are inspiration boards and storage space for set items and other things I’ve created.
How do you spend your time in your studio?
I spend most of my time concentrating on my paintings, while listening to music, podcasts or audiobooks. I’m constantly working on other projects too - theatre design, costumes, carpet design, showroom windows, books, workshops, helping other people create wild-flower fields or museum exhibitions featuring flower installations in different materials such as plastic, fabric or dried flowers.
What inspires you?
Nature. It is simply magical that colours grow out of the earth - these things we call flowers. The shapes and colours of flowers are beyond anything in our wildest imagination. I also love how nature and flowers can calm our nervous system and connect me with myself. I can be present in the moment.
What shaped you as an artist? Where did it all start? Was there art in your childhood?
My grandmother was a visual artist on her farm in Thy. She painted in the attic overlooking the fields. One of the wings of the farm had been converted into a gallery. She painted on everything - walls, ceilings, floor and cushions. She loved flowers and her farm was surrounded by flowers. I spent a lot of time on the farm as a child. It was a magical Pippi Longstocking land, where there were no rules, with a pink living room and a garden where I could disappear into the flowers. She taught me how to paint with a putty knife and a special layer-on-layer technique with oil paint, which I now use. Her motifs were flowers and so are mine - mixed with other plants that only grow inside me. She made gigantic floral arrangements directly on the ground and in sauce bowls around her fairy-tale farm and also taught me how.
Did you have a formal artistic education? If so, where and how much did it make a mark on the artist you are today? If not, do you ever wish that you had been to art school?
I’m a self-taught artist and florist. I studied Dramaturgy and Modern Culture and Cultural Communication at the University of Copenhagen, which forms a background catalogue for my activities. For me, it has proven to be a good thing not to be a trained visual artist or florist, as I know neither what you’re supposed or not supposed to do, and have always been able to do my own thing.
What and who influences your creative practice?
Once again, nature and flowers are my muses.
Does your home country or the place where you live influence your art?
The nature on Møn, where we have a farm, is a particular source of inspiration to me. I also visit museums and galleries in search of inspiration.
Where do your ideas come from? How do you hold onto and record your ideas? How do you develop them into art?
I meditate every morning, and this gives me lots of ideas. They usually crop up during breaks. Or when I swim in the morning or go for a walk in the woods, or spending time with flowers in my field on Møn. I sketch my thoughts and photo flowers that have a particularly provocative colour. But my paintings emerge out of the present moment, when I can’t prepare anything, and it all depends on what’s going on inside me on that particular day and how the colours blend. Unexpected colour schemes sometimes occur, which I fall in love with and simply have to apply to the canvas.
When you start a new work or project, do you plan what you’re going to create or do you improvise?
I improvise, follow my intuition. It’s a special mental state for the paintings. Sculptures or other larger projects require more planning, because there are many phases. Take my ‘Sea Table’, for example, which is made of resin and dried flowers.
Can you tell us a little more about what you are currently doing? What techniques are you working with? Are there very specific ideas that you are trying to explore in your work?
I’ve begun to try my hand at landscape painting, painting the countryside on Møn. It is fascinating to see how the tranquillity of nature and the landscape takes shape through me. It’s a new direction for me. There’s also something else happening, where I do not fill the entire canvas, and leave large areas without layers.
Do you enjoy reading? If so, what kinds of books? What are you currently reading?
I love reading and actually Gyldendal have just published my first book Poppykalas and the Magic Flowers, which is all about connecting with nature, flowers and oneself. Tove Ditlevsen and Inger Christensen are two of my favourite authors. I also love Eckhardt Tolle and Heksens Håndbog (The Witch’s Manual) is a bit of a Bible for me.
Do you listen to music? If so, what? Do you listen to music while you work?
Yes, I listen a lot to Emma Seersted Høeg, Jada, Di Garbi, Snatam Kaur, Kate Bush and Beyonce. I like something upbeat if I have to paint expressively, and something more meditative, if I have to touch on something more vulnerable in myself.
Do you have any hobbies? What do you do to relax when not working?
I love nature, especially flowers. As much as possible I spend time in the largest therapy room in the world - nature. I read a lot, I meditate and I go to Kundalini Yoga.
Who are your favorite artists – past and present? Why?
I find Hilma af Klint very inspired. Her colour and idiom are extra-terrestrial, and I love her spiritual approach to colour. She almost channels the colours. In terms of living artists, I am very fond of Camille Engstrøm. I love her colour schemes and her Instagram profile, in which she dances with her paintings.
Do you collect art? If so, describe some of your favorite works.
Yes. My favourite piece is a small ceramic work by Klara Lilja. It’s hanging on my wall. It was a Christmas present from my husband and children. I find it moving that they chose it with its pale mint and pink roses. Another work by Jon Pilkington is in shades of blue, but with many colours inspired by the blue hour. Also have works by my friend Stine Maria Aalykke: for example, an acrylic painting of a woman in a dark blue dress dancing beneath a white full moon.
Do you enjoy traveling? Where have you traveled to? Has that influenced your work?
I travel a lot. Mexico, New York, USA, Argentina, Vietnam. Mexico and the visit to Frida Kahlo’s home in Mexico City will always remain with me. She is also one of my great muses. I am a huge fan of the powerful colours that Mexican artists have used for years - in their fabrics too. It’s a whole other force. Here in Denmark we tend to be a little afraid of bright colours. But I love it!
Do you think art has an important role to play in the world?
We need beauty to alleviate all the frightful things that happen in the world. Art also has an uncensored voice that we must never shut up.
Do you have any advice for aspiring young artists?
Follow your gut feeling. Always.
