Abstract art can seem simple at first glance – colours, shapes, and movements without a clear motif. But precisely the absence of anything recognisable is what makes abstract art so open, sensory, and personal.
Here’s a guide to what abstract art is, how you can understand it – and how it can work in your home.
What characterises abstract art?
In abstract art, the motif is not bound to reality. You don't necessarily see landscapes, people, or objects. Instead, the artist works with: colours, shapes, textures, movement and rhythm.
This means that the artwork does not tell one specific story. Instead, it opens up a space where you can experience, interpret, and sense for yourself.
View my small abstract paintings
Why choose abstract art?
Many choose abstract art because it doesn't "lock down" the space.
A figurative painting can point in one direction – a specific motif or narrative. Abstract art, on the other hand, offers more freedom and opens up for interpretation. Abstract art can create calm without dominating and add energy through colours and movement. The painting often changes character depending on light and surroundings.
This makes it particularly suitable for homes where one desires a more open and sensory atmosphere.
Abstract art doesn't need to be understood; it needs to be experienced and felt.
Instead of asking what the painting depicts, you can try to feel what happens in your body when you look at it. Does it feel calm, vibrant, heavy, or light? Are you drawn into it – or does it feel indifferent? Abstract art often speaks more to intuition than to analysis.
The meaning of colours in abstract painting
Colours play a central role in abstract paintings. Bright and open colours can provide lightness and airiness, while darker tones can create depth and weight. Contrasts add energy and movement.
It is often the colours that first attract us to a painting, and it is also the colours that fit into a room – or stand out in the right way. Abstract art works particularly well in modern homes because it does not compete with concrete motifs in the room.
It can unite the colours in the interior design and create calm on a large wall.
Modern painting
Many of my paintings are based on the abstract universe. In the old days, there were rules that an abstract painting had to be fully abstract, but in modern painting, more is allowed. My paintings are therefore not always fully abstract. The fundamental base is abstract, but some paintings become more botanical, where leaves and flowers connect with the abstractions. Sometimes a small butterfly or a bird emerges as part of the narrative. I don't want to be fixed. In modern painting, there is room for play and breaking boundaries.
I also sometimes have a little storyteller in my paintings in the form of a small woman. She is not very big or dominant - quite the opposite. She is always small, transparent and anonymous, she has the same colour as her surroundings and blends into the abstractions. She tells more about her surroundings than herself.
Large abstract modern paintings
Abstract art is not the absence of meaning – but an open invitation to experience, and in modern painting, there is room for play and storytelling.
Read more about abstract paintings