My Artistic Journey

From childhood dreams to artistic reality

My artistic journey began at an early age, when as a child I found solace in drawing and painting. It was a way to process the world around me, an escape from reality and an opportunity to create my own reality. My earliest memories are filled with images of paper and pencil, where the imagination was given free rein. Over the years this passion developed into something bigger; I realized that art was not just a hobby, but an inescapable part of my identity.

The Magic of Art in Youth

In my youth, when I began to explore different artistic techniques and media, I discovered bronze. This ancient art form fascinated me with its ability to capture a moment in time – an ability to create something that would last forever. My early attempts with bronze sculptures were characterized by many mistakes and learning, but also by a deep satisfaction in creating something with my hands that could stand the test of time.

Breakthrough and Development

It wasn't until later in my life that I really started to find my own voice as an artist. For decades I have worked tirelessly to perfect my craft, always with a focus on expressing the feelings that lie deep within me. My works are often inspired by nature, human relationships and the complex emotions that bind us together. This has led to exhibitions both nationally and internationally, where my works have found homes with collectors all over the world.

Today, Lina is a full-time artist

And a little more. She is very busy. "It's fantastic to be able to try it," she beams, "because I can remember just as clearly what it was like not knowing if I had money for the next term." But today, large companies are happy to pay several hundred thousand kroner to decorate their domiciles with her art. The always beautiful women and animals.

"When I say I paint or create nude women in bronze, people think their own way." But it's about Lina being glowingly proud of being a woman. Thus, each and every piece of art created by her hands is a tribute to Mother Earth. The art balances on a fine line between the ultra feminine and the pornographic. "Because it must not be like that. I myself think that my art radiates a crisp femininity and love.” She points to one of her photos where the woman's breasts are exposed and her well-shaped balls are showing. "This picture is a good example, because I think it preserves the feminine erotic without becoming..." Lina searches for the right word. "... vulgar." Because today her language is fluent, and if you don't know it, you don't notice that sometimes she has to find a substitute for a certain word, which she knows will cause her problems.

I am my art

"I want to deliver something that makes people say something. I don't wear a mask when I work. It's true what I do. Because I am my art," says Lina, who was given a task by Sjælsø Gruppen, for whom she had to make seven sculptures, each of which had to represent an emotion. "When I made the one called Love, I walked around bubbling with love. When I made Hopelessness I used the scarf as a symbol.

Because my worst nightmare would be to be forced to hide my femininity. I simply cannot imagine anything worse. So I made a female body with a scarf, handcuffs and bound feet. I could feel the hopelessness down to my bones. When I created the figure Sorrow, I was completely dissolved and relived the grief I felt when I lost my father as a very young woman. And I think this honesty redeems the viewer. I have experienced it several times at exhibitions. For example, there was an elderly gentleman in his 70s who collapsed during a performance.

Thirty years ago he had lost his wife, but he had never really processed the grief. He said that truth, love and care flowed out of my pictures, which had completely overwhelmed him. Roughly the same thing happened to a woman at the same vernissage. Today she comes to all my exhibitions and events," says Lina and tries to find an explanation:

"I think it's about the fact that love is often associated with reservations. The only love that is unconditional is that between mother and child. And when, for example, these two people suddenly experience the immediate love that flows out of my art, it overwhelms and opens a chamber that may have been closed for many years."

Seize the dream

Not many Danish artists can boast of having a studio and exhibiting in New York. But Lina can. She has exhibited at the world's largest art exhibition Art Expo in New York and San Francisco, first in 2000 and every year since then.

The studio in New York was a dream she had. Her father taught her early that you can do anything you want if you really want it. "Today I have actually fulfilled my dream," says Lina, looking enviably satisfied.

She ponders and lets her gaze drift over the studio at Attemosegaard. Large more or less finished paintings lie on the floors. The patinated bronze women stand everywhere and follow along, with their different expressions. She stops at the large bright windows that open up to a beautiful and unruly nature. "I actually dream of making a mini Louisiana. Imagine a horse paddock as a sculpture park. Sometimes between the beautiful horses stand fantastic sculptures. I wanted to invite different artists to exhibit and combine it all with alternative treatment.”

She pauses.

"If I were to give advice to women who want to find out and achieve their innermost dreams, I would say that the core is self-confidence. Build your confidence,” she says with an ease as if it were as simple as stealing candy from a child. "I got a present from home, because my mother always let me know that I was loved. But if you haven't been so lucky, you have to work it out.

Look in the mirror, learn to accept yourself as you are. Love your flaws. And do it every day. Write notes to yourself. Write, I'm lovable. Look at them several times a day. Eventually you believe it. But it's also about trusting your intuition. Hold on to your immediate thoughts and feelings. They are usually the right ones for you.

But most importantly," Lina says and smiles: "Open your heart. Allow yourself to love yourself, because then others will love you too.”

"I create works that I am sure will give the viewer a great experience - I contact my innermost self when I work with my art, I am my art." says Lina, who was given a task by Sjælsø Gruppen, for whom she had to create 7 several meter high sculptures, each of which had to represent an emotion.

"When I created "Love", I walked around bubbling with love and with butterflies in my stomach like when you're in love, but when I got to "Grief" I became completely unhappy and thought about my husband's violent death from ALS, got a little chat with him, and that was the whole process in "The 7 Emotions", and in general in my art.

I do my best and draw on some great innate powers when I create my works, every one of my works is unique and created by me, I take part in the casting, patina myself and grind and polish with my 2 people who are casters and grinds. In the oil paintings, there are often 12-20 layers of oil at plenty of depth which reach out to the viewer, there are plenty of animals, giant trees and our Mother Earth in the form of the woman - and the treetops are her hair.

I am so lucky that I can follow my sculptures from start to finish, because I have my own bronze foundry, and thus no climate footprint from transport, and beautiful Æbleblomst farm with the fairy-tale elf-like studio.

Click through to Bronze Figures and Art Paintings and see the collection of my artworks - a collection through time. Thanks for looking at my art.

Statement from art critic Ole Lindgren...

"For more than 30 years, Lina Murel Jardorf has understood how to touch, unite and talk to people through her soulful works, because Lina wants to deliver art that tells people something. She doesn't wear a mask when she works. Lina is her art! "