Biography

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Kari Elisabeth Haug is a Norwegian visual artist working with painting and drawing.

She made her debut with a solo exhibition in 2008 and was shortly thereafter discovered by Saatchi Gallery in London. This led to an invitation to the Florence Biennale in 2009, followed by exhibitions in Europe, the United States, and Asia.

Since then, she has participated in numerous international projects, biennales, and museum exhibitions, and has been featured in a range of art publications and magazines. Her work has been presented internationally, including in Venice, Rome, New York, Beijing, Barcelona, Paris, and Madrid.

In 2013, she was invited to Galleri Tondinelli in Rome with the solo exhibition Sognando Edvard Munch, marking the 150th anniversary of Edvard Munch’s birth. This period became a turning point in her artistic development, leading towards a more experience-based and intuitive practice.

In recent years, her work has gathered around the ongoing project Home – Land of Silence, in which painting and drawing explore stillness, belonging, hope, and human experience through a listening and intuitive process.

In 2025, she participated in Jubilee of Hope in Rome. In 2026, she presents Home – Land of Silence / In Minor Keys at Palazzo Pisani-Revedin in Venice in connection with the 61st Biennale di Venezia. The same year, she participates in Identity Project – Masters Section during Seoul Art Week.

Haug works from her studio on Bjerkøya in Holmestrand, Norway.

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Artist Statement

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My work begins in stillness.

I work from an inner space of experience, where stillness is not an absence but an active condition that carries movement, rhythm, and that which has not yet taken form.

Through painting and drawing, the works develop through a process of listening, allowing the image to emerge before language. The line arises through breath, presence, and inner movement, without a predetermined direction. What emerges is allowed to remain and develop until it can sustain itself, and is then held there through restraint.

Home – Land of Silence is the overarching framework for this practice. Within this framework, the works explore belonging, hope, and human experience in relation to nature, time, and the cycles of life through different bodies of work and series, including Roots and Reflections, Universal Hope, and In Minor Keys.

In a time marked by speed and unrest, the works seek to keep open a space for stillness, presence, and resonance.​​​​​​​​​​​​​