Kristin Holm-Dybvig Verified listing

Rooted in personal experience and emotional perception, my pastel paintings explore the subtle intersection of memory, mood, and place. I am drawn to nature’s ancient, unaltered forms—mountains, coastlines, and expanses shaped over millennia—landscapes that remain largely untouched by human presence. These enduring elements serve as quiet witnesses to deep time, connecting individual memory with the collective human story.

While loosely based on real landscapes, my work moves toward abstraction to distance itself from the site-specific. In doing so, I aim to create spaces that are both recognisable and universal—visual refuges that invite introspection and emotional resonance. Rather than depicting a precise location, I seek to evoke a felt sense of place: where outer topographies echo inner states, and where the boundaries between past and present, self and environment, gently dissolve.

Colour is central to my practice. I use soft pastels for their immediacy and depth, building layered, vibrant surfaces that carry both intensity and subtlety. Through a poetic use of colour and form, I strive to create ethereal, contemplative spaces—places where the viewer is invited to pause, reflect, and reconnect.

At its core, my work explores how landscapes shape our sense of identity, belonging, and continuity. Each painting is a quiet meditation on time, presence, and the emotional resonance of the natural world.

At the heart of my work lies a deep engagement with the emotional and psychological dimensions of landscape. Nature—particularly its ancient, unaltered forms—serves as both subject and source of inspiration. Mountain ranges, coastlines, and open terrain act as silent witnesses to the passage of time, offering a sense of continuity that transcends the fleetingness of daily life. These enduring landscapes speak to something elemental and shared, connecting personal experience with collective memory.

My practice is rooted in lived experience and emotional perception. Rather than depicting specific places, I use abstraction to move away from the literal and toward the universal. This approach allows me to translate inner states—such as memory, longing, or stillness—into visual form. In this way, landscape becomes a vessel for introspection, not just observation. I am interested in how our surroundings shape our sense of identity, security, and belonging, and how these feelings often arise in quiet, in-between spaces.

Colour plays a central role in expressing these ideas. I work primarily in soft pastels, drawn to their immediacy and richness. Through a process of layering and intuitive mark-making, I build compositions that feel both grounded and dreamlike. Colour is not used descriptively, but emotively—evoking mood, atmosphere, and a sense of timelessness.

My inspiration often emerges from fleeting sensory experiences: a certain light across water, the quiet weight of a hill, or the feeling of stillness in an open field. These moments become starting points—translated, abstracted, and transformed into contemplative spaces that invite viewers to pause, reflect, and connect.

Kristin Holm Dybvig is a Norwegian visual artist whose practice explores the meeting of color, memory, and atmosphere. Educated in drawing, form, and color at Stavanger Husflidskole and holding a diploma in art therapy from Tobias School of Art in England, she brings a deep understanding of both artistic expression and the human experience to her work. Since 2018, Dybvig has exhibited widely in Norway and internationally, with solo shows at VIK in Eidfjord and Sandnes Kunstforening, and group exhibitions from London and Italy to Switzerland and Northumberland, UK. Her paintings have earned multiple international honors, including the «Diploma of Artistic Excellence» (CFA Artist of the Year 2022–23) and recognition from Contemporary Art Curator Magazine and Trevisan International Art. Featured in publications such as «Women United Art Magazine», «Localfolk Nordic», and «PARTER», Dybvig’s work continues to gain critical acclaim for its vivid palette and poetic sensibility.