Harmonies Unveiled: A Candid Conversation with Laust Højgaard
Laust Højgaard’s universe combines exaggeration, a keen sense of detail, finely thoughtful texture and distortions. The artist works on several paintings at the same time and thus gives real coherence to his work, making the sources of inspiration resonate.
Could you share how your upbringing and early experiences shaped your outlook on life and influenced your career choices?
Painting and drawing and stepping into a creative process in general has always been a safe space for me.
It’s a way for me to process things around me. As I’ve grown older and better at understanding my own work it has become more clear to me that it’s something I sometimes need to process thoughts and balance things out.
Can you talk about a significant challenge you've faced in your career, how you addressed it, and what lessons you learned from that experience?
Some years back a had a long break from painting. For many reasons I felt like it wasn’t my turf because I had too many expectations. I focused on the end result and totally lost my curiosity for the process until I just stopped. I wasn’t doing any creative work and lost interest in exploring others work too like.
I felt like this broke my perception of me as a creative person. After a long time of struggle I slowly felt like my curiosity for being creative started tickling again, but this time I felt like I was able to work from a foundation that was build on my guts and with a more playful approach. That’s the short version at least.
How do you approach the creative or problem-solving process in your work, and where do you find inspiration?
I try to follow my intuition always. If I don’t keep myself curious I get bored and what I make becomes boring too.
Part of my brain wants to let crafts, skills and strategy take over and the only things that overrules that is to choose to be playful instead of focusing on the end result too much.
How have your personal and professional goals evolved over the years, and what drives your ambition now?
I’m grateful that galleries wants to hang my work and that collectors want to buy my it so I can maintain my creative freedom. It’s really a privilege and something I wish to continue with of course.
What advice would you offer to individuals aspiring to make a mark in your field?
Try to move past fear and insecurity when it comes to sharing and showing your work to others. It might help you in ways you didn’t expect.
Could you tell us about any projects or initiatives you're currently involved in and what makes them meaningful to you?
I just planned to do another charity collaboration with 4by6 supporting homeless children and adults.
I’m also participating in the project called Postcards for Ukraine that support those affected by the war in Ukraine. Obviously I’m very happy if it makes a difference for people in both cases.
Where do you see yourself in the next decade, and what aspirations do you have for your personal and professional life ?
Tough one, but I like to think that my artistic universe will keep expanding obviously.
