Anne Valen Næss Paintings Express Balance and Confront Inequality

When you enter Anne Valen Næss’ studio in Sandefjord, you are greeted by what she calls a bombardment of colors. The artist wants to say something about interpersonal relationships with her large-format, brightly-hued images.

“When we interact, it’s important that we see our differences as resources and constructive challenges that we should respect,” she says, giving us an important key to understanding the images she is otherwise reluctant to interpret for the viewer.

Color balance

Color balance

On a large trolley, paint and brushes imply chaos. The artist’s green smock indicates that not all her pigments ends up on the canvas. Valen Næss takes a step back and considers the image on the easel, almost two square meters of vivid composition. She struggles a little with the way forward.

“It’s a lot about color balance. Even though there are lots of colors, it must work so that it’s not just a carnival,” she says. She usually starts working on a picture by selecting a color palette, a universe where the characters will live their lives. Then she sketches the figures in charcoal.

The vivid values Valen Næss employs make her images easy to recognize. Some have described her as one of Norway’s foremost colorists. She thinks that’s an overstatement. “Perhaps I’m one of the boldest,” she offers.

Sees colors when she hears music

Since childhood, Anne Valen Næss has inhabited a radiant world. “I’ve had these colors in me all the time,” she says, explaining that she has a form of synesthesia, a term for different senses that are connected. She sees many colors when she hears music, and there was a lot of music in her childhood home. Strong colors have accompanied her throughout her life.

Anne was going to be a musician. Music was the great interest in the home of Mary and Sverre Valen. Her mother taught singing, and her father was an internationally acclaimed choral conductor. Anne studied music and was on her way to becoming a choir conductor like her father. But it didn’t work out that way. For many years now she has worked exclusively with visual art.

Positive attitudes to differences

Many people who see her paintings are left wondering about the figures in the large formats. What is the artist trying to convey? It’s not always easy to know, and Valen Næss doesn’t want to say too much about what she puts into her pictures. Her works are meant to be open so that the viewer may make up his or her own mind. 

But there is a zebra figure on a table in her studio, and anyone who has seen some of her paintings will realize that zebras appear in many of her works. 

“The zebra looks very sympathetic, but is incredibly stubborn. It cannot be tamed. For me, the symbolism of the zebra is first and foremost that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. It’s so easy for us to wrongly interpret, judge and pigeonhole each other,” explains Valen Næss.

She believes that we need to see people’s differences as a resource and not as a problem. 

“I think it’s important that we have positive attitudes towards differences. I’m very concerned about that, not least in the church.

See others as beautiful flowers

Anne has thrived in the church and has been both an elder and a member of the church board for many years. But ever since she grew up, she has seen conflicts in the church and wondered why this is the case.

A song from her childhood has given her a beautiful picture of church life. She quotes the lyrics that have made such an impression: “How good it is to enter the courtyard of our Lord, and there to meet the faithful. They stand like lilies there.” 

“Ever since I was a little girl,” she muses, “I have thought that this is a beautiful image. We should regard each other as precious and beautiful flowers in a meadow. Maybe that is more in line with what God thinks of us,” the artist suggests as she looks at the various figures in the picture she is working on.

However, Valen Næss admits that there are flowers in the meadow that you might not think much of. “The more active you are, the more you may be perceived as a cactus, but cacti are not to be despised, they have beautiful shapes and flowers,” she says.

“Other people in the church have to live with me, for better or worse. I find that they meet me and my imperfections with grace. I will do the same to others. On an interpersonal level, we have great potential that may significantly enrich the church. Most of my paintings are about relational aspects of life.”

A version of this story first appeared in  in the Norwegian Union magazine Adventnytt.