Lise Trampedach – artist by a stroke of colour

By Signe Hansen | Photos: Lise Trampedach

For most of her life, Lise Trampedach’s creativity found an outlet everywhere except on canvas. The younger sister of celebrated Danish artist Kurt Trampedach, she sewed, decorated and experimented, but never imagined herself as a painter. Only later in life, through the traditional limewash colours she mixed by hand, did painting arrive. It emerged almost by accident but has since grown into a practice entirely her own.

Interviewed at her home in Græsted, Lise Trampedach sits in a space that seems to embody her lifelong creative energy. The house is a converted cinema, once a windowless hall but now a bright, open space with large windows and a high ceiling. At the far end, a large portrait immediately catches the eye, while paints and tools gather in one corner.

The paint is handmade by Lise Trampedach, who started her fascination with traditional limewash, made from lime powder and pigments, more than a decade ago. Drawing on her training as a decorator, she developed unique shades and mixed them all by hand. “I’ve worked all my life creatively – sewing, making textile prints, homemade presents; you name it.
There’s hardly anything I haven’t tried,” she says. “But I never thought I would become a painter, never.”

Over the years, she developed and sold hundreds of shades and was eventually commissioned to use her paints to create distinctive photographic backdrops. Among them were backgrounds for official portraits of the Danish King and Queen, including one that also featured on a Greenlandic stamp. As her own paintings began to sell, however, she gradually shifted her focus and now dedicates all her time to her art.

Lise Trampedach – artist by a stroke of colour

A place of her own

That Lise Trampedach would eventually become a painter was far from obvious. Growing up as one of seven siblings, she was surrounded by creativity, particularly through her mother, who hand-coloured black-and-white aerial photographs and also drew and painted. Yet her older brother Kurt had already occupied the role of artist in the family, becoming one of Denmark’s most prominent painters and sculptors after his breakthrough in the 1960s.

“I was just a little girl when Kurt entered the art world, and he filled a lot,” she recalls. “I think I convinced myself that if you were going to be an artist, you had to be different, special. I never thought: I should try that too. Never.”

Still around 2017, after Lise Trampedach began producing limewash backdrops for photographers and stylists, the urge to paint her own works suddenly emerged. Not out of nowhere, but from her colours. One day, while wiping excess colour from a brush across a backdrop, she suddenly saw the outline of a dress. “I don’t think I would ever have started painting if I hadn’t had limewash everywhere,” she says. “I didn’t have this need to express myself artistically. It came in through the backdoor.”

Lise Trampedach – artist by a stroke of colour

Light in the lime

That accidental dress became the beginning of a recurring motif. Since then, Lise Trampedach’s repertoire has expanded to portraits, abstract works and flowers, but lime remains the foundation. Mixed with natural pigments, the material traditionally used on exterior walls creates a tactile surface very different from acrylic or oil paint. “It gives this beautiful matte, almost velvety quality that people respond to,” she explains. “The crystals in the lime catch the light, as you see with a white church in moonlight – it looks like it glows, and that’s the effect of the crystals in the limewash.”

The dresses, in particular, have prompted unexpectedly emotional reactions. “I’ve had people cry when they buy one of the dresses,” says Lise Trampedach. “They may never have danced – I’ve never danced myself – but somehow the movement touches them.”

Lise Trampedach – artist by a stroke of colour

Finding her own expression

The paintings first left the walls of Lise Trampedach’s own home almost by chance. A customer buying paint asked if he could include them in an exhibition his sister was curating, and one exhibition led to another. Today, people discover her paintings through exhibitions, Instagram and word of mouth, but sharing them still feels vulnerable. “Deep down, I’m a shy person,” she says. With a small laugh, she adds: “But, of course, with age, that goes away a bit. You go out into the world and discover that you can actually do some things.”

As more people have discovered her paintings, commissions have followed, especially for larger works. And just like that, Lise Trampedach has quietly found her own corner in the world of art.