Atelier Mia Willaume – painting hope into being

By Signe Hansen | Photos: Mia Willaume

The art of Mia Willaume is as much about process as outcome. With intuition as her guide, she works playfully in colour, texture and form, layering fragments until something new emerges. Her canvases pulse with energy – sometimes tender, sometimes raw – inviting viewers into a space full of life between chaos and harmony. In her current works, viewers are invited into a luminous language of hope, inspired by everything that grows and pulses outside of our control.

“Art, for me, contributes to a kind of spiritual strengthening at a time when the world is calling for balance, presence and meaning,” explains Willaume. “My works hold both sensuousness and the cerebral – perhaps, at times, something spiritual. I find that my customers want and need to connect right now; when someone chooses my art, it’s often because they feel it gives them a sense of energy, hope, and a connection to something larger.”

For two decades, Willaume has lived from her art. Her canvases have travelled from the studio into homes across Denmark and abroad, and onto the walls of galleries in Sweden, Denmark, and Spain. Recent years have widened the circle with a representation by Davis Gallery Contemporary in Copenhagen, a spring residency at Burren College of Art on Ireland’s west coast, and a growing network with collaborations across the world.

A work in progress – one of the paintings to be exhibited at Davis Gallery Contemporary Art.

A breakdown in glitter

Born into a household where music and making were everyday acts, Willaume first trained and worked as an art teacher before committing fully to her own art. One New Year’s Eve, surrounded by glitter and guests, she broke down. “I suddenly knew I couldn’t continue like that. The next morning, I went to the bank to borrow money, to set up my first studio in my garage. I decided that this was going to be my life’s work,” she recalls.

The timing was precarious – just before the financial crisis – but she weathered it, reinventing herself several times and building a career without formal Art Academy credentials. “I don’t have an education from the Art Academy, but you don’t stop being an artist because you’re not formally trained,” she notes. “You are what you do.”

Instead, Willaume has refined her skills through various recognised art schools and teachers, and her paintings have long found their way into private homes. Families have told her how their children have invented stories around them, how a painting transformed the mood of a room, or even how a buyer once had to turn a canvas to the wall until she was ready to face its message. “If you’ve put yourself into a work, then it carries energy,” Willaume says.

Mia Willaume is a member of BKF (Danish Visual Artists Association) and KKS (Association of Female Artists in Denmark). Photo: Kim Ignatius.

Good news as artistic material

in her work, Willaume thrives on the tension between control and spontaneity. “I love working in layers, where the controlled and the unexpected meet and new stories appear in colour, form and material,” she says.

In recent years, Willaume has anchored her practice in what she calls good news. At a time when headlines often depress, she was struck by reports that parts of the Great Barrier Reef were recovering. “That kind of story is the news channel I want to be as an artist,” she explains. “It gives me energy – the colours, the hope, the sense of being connected to something bigger.”

On canvas, this translates into large, layered works where optimism and fragility coexist. She deliberately incorporates mistakes, to resist making the images too sweet, often holding back the light with raw brushstrokes or unresolved tensions in form. “I never compromise on authenticity. It’s about being true to the core of who I am.”

The insane Dane abroad

Travel has been another key driver of Willaume’s evolution. Residencies in Spain and, most recently, at Burren College of Art in Ireland have given her fresh perspectives. She recalls unfurling a ten-metre canvas abroad: “I was called the insane Dane – coming from one of the world’s smallest countries and then rolling out ten metres of colour and figures. It was wild, inspired by nature, and fantastic,” she laughs. Such experiences reinforce her belief that shifting places – and meeting new people – shifts the work itself. “You plant yourself in new soil, and something new grows,” she says.
She also channels, and renews, her energy through art workshops and large-scale projects for schoolchildren and adults.

In bloom at Davis Gallery Contemporary Art

October marks Willaume’s debut exhibition at Davis Gallery Contemporary Art in Copenhagen, where she is now represented. Titled The Bloom of Being, the show brings together large-scale works created over the past year. “They are pompous, intuitive, full of flowers and organic beings,” she says. “I’ve gone all in, combining beauty with raw, rough strokes and unexpected materials.”

During a study trip to Burren College of Art on Ireland’s west coast, Mia Willaume created a 10-meter-long canvas exploding with life.

Web: www.miawillaume.dk
Facebook: MIA WILLAUME
Instagram: @Mia_Willaume

Exhibition: The Bloom of Being

Venue: Davis Gallery Contemporary Art, 69 Bredgade, Copenhagen

Opening: 24 October 2025

Duration: One month

Featuring: New paintings and large-scale works created 2024–25, as well as ceramic sculptures by Tina Hvid