” I look for people that move me in some way. I find them everywhere…
On the street, in newspapers, on the internet and in old photo albums.
Most of them are unknown to me.
I steal their glances, and the colors they are not aware of themselves.
I place some of them together with others I’ve found,  from other times and places.
As such, they become timeless, as if they have always belonged to each other.”

Charlotte Engelhaart

Charlotte Engelhaart is back in the gallery with the solo exhibition #surfingbloodlines,   for the fifth time, only 2 years after her last exhibition “Love Affairs”   Engelhaart`s art has always bees about humans, and over the last few years she has gone even closer to this.

” The fact that both of my parents grew up as orphans, has made a huge impact on me and my life. Their missing links, search for identity and roots, has followed me trough my life.  My mother grew up in a orphanage. In her search and longing for family, she made her own photo-album. It consisted of pictures of people she cut out from magazines and newspapers.  I have come to realize that that i am following in her footsteps, as I do the same thing.”

In large formats Charlotte Engelhaart makes close-up studies of the face, with universal interpretations of feelings, longings, and stories.

 ” I paint portraits as a way to communicate with the outside world. They were chosen because they have moved or touched me in one way or the other. Through painting, I can explore and view the subject in a completely different way. The paintings language, consisting of colour, form and brushstrokes, follows its own logic.  It is this language i want the viewer to participate in and be touched by.”

“Being seen” is one of the most important human needs  and in today’s social media, we expose ourselves like never before.Selfie is a term and with Charlotte Engelhaart, portraiture has gained a new renaissance. Engelhaart’s portrait paintings become very relevant and hit us with full strength. We recognize ourselves.

Walter Welo
Gulden Kunstverk

Translated by Mikael Andre Larsen