New Landscapes in Familiar Terrain 16

New parenthood is a world unto its own. With this specific series Haukaas spent the hours in between taking care of her new son—mostly when he was sleeping or out with his dad—painting. She takes time when she can. For as any parent knows, once a child arrives, your autonomy—at least for a season—departs. The resulting work is, therefore, something completely new. Size and timing was dictated by her new life as a mother as the work in turn taught her a new way to create art. As a new parent, days and nights blur together, and the series A New Landscape in Familiar Terrain mirrors that. Each painting is an imprint of another, changing the “original'' painting as each work becomes connected. She continues working on them separately as they become independent works. In some of them you can see a resemblance and some you cannot. But nevertheless, they have affected each other. Maybe even created each other. In her own words:

A new you greets you.

In the land of everything that exists but cannot be seen. A River holding all things past and present, so deep that I drown. So deep it swallows the sun.

Underneath, insisting tugs of the river, above, all the colors in the world reflecting on the surface. The loud swell of water, ice cold on the skin. M
Yet, a riverbed is promising on each side. Stones in the water - unsentimental, and safe - lead a path to somewhere. A new path every night. I collect my own stones and add.

New landscapes, familiar terrain. They are life, as they are death. They are the deep currents of the river and all the colors in the world. A part of everything that exists but cannot be seen.