The intense and beautiful world of Kaja Norum

By Celina Tran

Kaja Norum is a Norwegian figurative painter, as well as a former protégé and student of the famous master painter Odd Nerdrum. Classic and charged with emotion, Norum’s pieces can only be described as timeless, meticulous, and of course, staggeringly beautiful.

There’s something enigmatic about Kaja Norum’s art. While the contents are straightforward, often portraying people, her paintings are draped in a dark, foggy haze that adds to the mystery of the subject and their surroundings. Undoubtedly bound to tug at some heartstrings in the viewer, either for better or worse, Norum’s pieces are brilliant in portraying the human condition.

With no prior knowledge of the artist, it can be easy for viewers to assume that her pieces come from a different time and space entirely, one long gone. This is not random, but rather a part of Norum’s intention to create timeless pieces, not bound by a specific time or period. “People now are the same as they were 500 years ago, with the same feelings and yearnings. It’s just everything around us that’s changed,” she says.

The intense and beautiful world of Kaja Norum

Lucas Sculpture (exhibited at Hote Christiania Theatre). Photo: Kaja Norum

Beauty in classic artistry

In a contemporary world where modern artistic expression continues to move forward, Norum has taken a step back into the past. “I’ve always found pleasure in developing my hand at the classical craft, I feel like it’s a field with endless potential for artistic growth.”

She explains that her attachment to classical artistry has to do with beauty, which is something she not only values, but prioritises in her own creations as well as those she seeks out. “I never tire of looking at Rembrandt or Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpieces. They’re painted with an emotion that goes beyond photo realism, something more, as if nature has been improved and reached its highest potential. Beauty, to me, isn’t to paint a beautiful face, but rather harmony, the familiar, and the universal. I believe that to experience beauty is to recognize or sense this form of completion.”

Graphite Head study. Photo: Kaja Norum

It’s impossible not to recognise Norum’s words in each of her pieces. If you look at them for long enough, the fog that infuses the paintings with a mystery eventually lifts, showing you exactly which underlying emotion the piece is charged with – a classical Kitsch painting. It comes on sharp and strong, and regardless of the viewer’s background, everyone can find themselves lost in her work.

OUTCASTS Photo: Kaja Norum

Artistry from a young age

It’s unsurprising, but no less impressive, to hear that Norum’s passion for the arts stretched far back into childhood. As a young girl of four or five, she could be found hunched over a piece of paper with a pencil or paint brush in hand. Like other children, she initially enjoyed drawing animals, but this took a turn when she soon also began to copy famous paintings from books and images.

“When I was six, I discovered [Odd] Nerdrum’s pieces in a book, and I convinced myself they must have come from an entirely different time – they reminded me of the older, baroque art pieces I had seen. It was love at first sight, and he became my biggest role model within painting,” she says.

As faith would have it, Norum would find herself under Nerdrum’s artistic wing once she grew a little older. “To study under a master is an old tradition within visual arts, and Odd Nerdrum is the only one in Norway that offers this at a high level,” she explains.

From 2008 and 2011, both in Stavern and in Paris, she became one of the selected few who studied under the world-famous artist, where she developed her craft. After apprenticing with Nerdrum for three years, Norum debuted her own exhibition in 2011, which was met with great acclaim and considered a success, with most of the pieces sold on opening day. Since then, her collection has only grown larger.

Elysium. Photo: Kaja Norum

Inspiration from motherhood

Today, many of Norum’s pieces find inspiration in her own life, and of course in her role as a mother. In addition to painting many mother-and-child images, she also likes to explore other archetypal motifs or situations – secession, surrender, love, and death. “Archetypal motifs can be a central or important happening which our lives revolve around. They happen across all generations and millennia, which is why they’re considered timeless – a key quality I seek in my work,” she says.

In addition to commissions, Norum’s work can be viewed at exhibitions. On two occasions, Norum’s work has been picked out to take part in the Figurativas exhibition at the European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona, where she in 2023 received the Sheng Xinyu Art Prize. Other than this, Norum has a permanent gallery at Galleri Soon in Son, Norway, and tries to present a solo exhibition every other year. Her next exhibition in Norway is in 2025.