Maud Angelica Behn’s speech at the funeral of her father, Ari Behn, aroused many emotions in the Norwegian people. Since then, she has shown many times that mental health is something she is passionate about, whether through her poetry or on the canvas.
Now she and fellow artist Lavrans Borgen (19) have created two paintings together to raise money for Mental Health Youth.
– I think it is a very nice organisation. Helping young people who are struggling, so that they can get a foundation later in life. Helping people before it’s too late, I think that’s a very good thing to focus on, she tells Good Morning Norway.
Dad and the queen as inspiration
Behn follows in her father’s artist footsteps and showed what artist lives in her when she debuted with an art exhibition about “Happiness” just before Christmas.
But it wasn’t until she was a teenager that she began to focus more on art.
– I feel that everyone draws when they are small, and I also drew a lot with my dad. In the seventh grade, I felt that it gave me a lot of joy, and I wanted to get better and better. So I started drawing hands every day or trying to learn more realism – because I think it’s nice to know the rules before you bend them, she says and continues:
– I think it was a lot of fun, so I just drew all the time.
– But could dad help you?
– We did some things where I drew a line, then he drew a line. He showed me his art, talked about Picasso and taught me about it – I thought that was very nice.
She also says that her grandmother, Queen Sonja, has inspired her a lot and taught her about art.
– She is very good, and she has also shown me how to print. She has taken me to exhibitions and talked to me a lot about art. So she’s a very nice teacher, that’s very nice, she says and smiles.
AT THE OPENING: Crown Princess Metter-Marit, Maud Angelica Behn and Queen Sonja during the opening of the exhibition Open Doors in the Queen Sonja KunstStall last year. Photo: Håkon Mosvold Larsen
After her father died, she also worked with her uncle, in his studio.
– Yes, uncle Espen, he is dad’s brother. I was with him in the studio, then I oil painted with him. He taught me a lot about how to do oil painting. He sat on the record player, then we drank coke together and then I felt very “artsy”, she says.
The collaboration on two paintings
Now she and fellow artist Lavrans Borgen are exhibiting two paintings to raise money for Mental Health Youth. The two young artists met at an autumn exhibition in Ås just before Christmas, when they exhibited next to each other.
Maud Angelica (19) will donate to Mental Health Youth – here she explains the process
This led to this collaboration.
– I know a bit of Maud’s story from before and knew that both of them had this as a kind of heart issue, exactly that with mental health. Then we chatted, got to know each other better and agreed that we should try our hand at this project. It’s been really cool, says Lavrans Borgen, before Behn talks about the collaboration:
HAVE PAINTED TOGETHER: Lavrans Borgen (19) and Maud Angelica Behn (19) have painted two paintings together to raise money for Mental Health Youth. Photo: Camilla Blok/ Good Morning Norway
– We have painted together in his studio, talked and had a meal, she says.
They have painted the pictures together, but that does not mean that they have stood and held the same brush.
– We planned which concept we were going to follow, then we painted on each of our pictures, since there are two pictures. It worked very well, she says.
– I think we mixed our styles very well, he says.
Maud Angelica Behn about the way forward
They have given the paintings the names “Life’s plant” and “Barbed wire and rose painting”.
– Of course, art is always open to interpretation. But our idea behind the picture called “Barbed wire and rose paint” is to show the contrasts in the emotional spectrum. Where you see, on the left, that rose painting – the harmonious, the good, where one has found a kind of peace. But then maybe the barbed wire, on the right side there, has the one that depicts the more chaotic and unpredictable maybe then, says Lavrans.
Behn tells about the painting “Plant of Life”:
– It’s a bit more the fine side of mental health then, taking care of yourself. And I really like the symbolism of flowers and plants for mental health, watering the plant slowly but surely and watching yourself grow and take care of yourself. She gives herself a hug, then there are the plants growing from her back.
They are two young artists. Almost as old. Lavrans Borgen already makes a living from art.
– But it’s not a given that you’re going to be an artist when you grow up, Maud?
– I feel that the roads can go anywhere. I still don’t quite know what I want to do next. But I feel anyway, whether art is work or not, I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing art then. I feel like it gives me so much. It’s so much fun to be able to create whatever you want.
Used the paint as therapy
Mental health is therefore a topic that they are both concerned with. Lavrans Borgen says that art helped him when he felt the anxiety.
– I was actively involved in football, and was very serious about it. Then I actually went on a bit of a mental spree, a mixture of feeling pressure to perform there, pressure to perform at school and perhaps an overdose of external impulses then, which you get in youth, he says.
Then he thought it was nice to be able to take a place back, focus on his own mental health.
– Then I was lucky enough to explore that painting could help me as a kind of therapy then, he says and elaborates:
LIVING FROM ART: Lavrans Borgen says that art became a kind of therapy for him. Photo: Camilla Blok/ Good morning Norway
– There is something about being in your creative zone, a kind of flow zone, where it is just you and the canvas. For my part, it helps to sort the thoughts, when you stand and paint, the thoughts are sorted in the subconscious. In any case, I get a very good peace of mind from that.
