"Rite de passage" is a very special artwork for me, created with and for my twelve year old daughter, to visualise her current stage in life.

August, 2022
Ærø, DK

Rite de passage

Maria Fynsk Norup

Life is but a dream within a dream...
Self-portrait, 2021

Exhibited at ØKANT performance festival, Marstal, DK, 2021.

3682 × 5523

Morpheus' Spell

Preserved Beauty" is a conceptual self-portrait series created around the lengths we sometimes go to, to hold on to and preserve that which we find beautiful. 

Plastic wrapping, pickling and the art of preservation/conservation itself, all start out as a means to hold on to the natural beauty in an object. 

The preservation process however often quickly leaves the object fading, estranged from the natural world and sometimes even more scary than beautiful..

The Preserved Beauty series was awarded an honourable mention in the 18th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for female photographers.

Created October 2021.

Preserved Beauty I

"Light your own way" is a conceptual self-portrait created during the first covid lockdown, where finding and lighting your own way through the turmoil of emotions and thoughts literally became the only way forward at a time of great uncertainty and restraints.

Composite photography,  
2020

Light your own way

Inspired by Coreggio’s painting of Jupiter’s secretive seduction of Io, priestess of Juno and daughter of the river god Inachus, this work offers a more female-empowering and sensitive interpretation of the story. Here Io is depicted on her own, a figure of contemplation and strength, mesmerised and drawn by the allure of the dark clouds (representing a stormy and possibly illegal love). As a subtle counter-note, the dark cat appears at her side, both witchy protector and a symbol of emotional strength and female sexuality.

Jupiter and Io

Self-portrait, 2021

The series "Dryads - The tree-bound" was awarded an honourable mention in the Professional Fine Art section of the 17th Julia Margaret Cameron Award (part of the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards). 

Artist statement:  
The ancient Greek stories of the dryads, or forest nymphs, are full of drama, beauty and anthropomorphised ways of explaining the mythical or inexplicable in the natural world. The dryads were honoured as semi-godlike female spirits inhabiting trees and groves, often bound in such a way that their life itself was tied to the life of the trees. 

Many older cultures and religions show a similar reverence for nature, with beings akin to the dryads guarding trees and forests. The Japanese kodamas, the Indian Yakshini, as well as the more widely known elves and fairies are examples of these. In common for all was a respect for and belief in the sanctity of life of our natural surroundings, that to a large degree has been lost today.

Creating this project around these mythical beings is for me a way to lift the stories into our time, and remind people that our lives, like the dryads’, are equally bound to the life of the natural world. We as humans need to wake up to the fact that we have become reliant upon natural resources to the point of destroying the foundation of what we need to live. 

I wish to emphasise the mysterious, sometimes slightly eerie sensation you experience within older forests - when it feels like everything around you is alive, and someone might be watching. 

For the images of the dryads the aim is to create a range of scenes from the peaceful or idyllic to the dark and haunted, drawing inspiration from classical paintings of the nymphs, as well as from descriptions in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and texts from the Greek Mythology. 

As a self-portrait artist I have worked alone on this series, and have thus used myself for the dryad representations.

Winter's demand

"Tvillingernes Ursang / Twins’ kulning"

In waters deep, primordial womb,  
Twin souls emerged, two lives in bloom,  
Their naked bodies raw and pure,  
Of foetal bonds’ connection sure.

In birth as one, then torn apart,  
Yet still connected heart to heart,  
In currents' dance they flow and glide,  
Reflected, strengthened, side by side.

Amidst the waves that crash and roar,  
Their spirits rise, connect and soar,  
With every ebb, with every flow,  
Together they endure, they grow.

For in the depths of ancient sea,  
Two souls entwined, in symphony,  
Their strength united, ever long,  
Twin spirits, powerful and strong.

(Original poem created in collaboration with ChatGPT)  
Self-portrait, July 2023

*Kulning is an old Nordic herding song

Tvillingernes Ursang / Twins' kulning

Self-portrait with my two daughters.  
August 2022

All of us

Part of the flow self-portrait series “Nature’s Remembrance”.

"Nature's Remembrance" consists of 12 variations - all unique, all 1/1s - 
each with their own expression, but within the same framework. 

The series was created as a site specific work for my solo exhibition during the performance festival ØKANT in Marstal (DK) 2021. The series was shot inside the factory hall where my exhibition took place, to fulfil the festival prompt of artworks being locally and site specifically anchored.

All initial collectors will be airdropped the poster NFT of the 12 variations in the series.

Nature's Remembrance 9

Nature's Remembrance 11

Nature's Remembrance

Created in tribute to the ACK Piano SZN, May 2023

Music of my soul - Sonata No.1

Editioned works by visual artist and photographer Maria Fynsk Norup

“Hold fast to dreams,  
For if dreams die  
Life is a broken-winged bird,  
That cannot fly.”  
(Langston Hughes )

Since I was quite young I've always been very inspired by van Gogh. 
His art and story was the theme of my final essay in high-school, and I remember being completely engrossed in the vibrant force of his images. I haven't thought much about it for many years, but then I recently watched the van Gogh movie "At Eternity's Gate" by Julian Schnabel (one of my favourite screenwriters), and I think now I better understand why he had always struck a chord with me. This quote “I dream my painting and I paint my dream.” - is exactly how so many of my photos come to life as well! - Just substituting painting with photography, naturally - and the camera (and editing process) then acting as my dream-catcher.

There's so much inspiration to be caught if we let it...

Dream catcher

Maria Fynsk Norup Editions

"Second Skin" is storywise the precursor to Maria's 1/1 work "Metamorphosis". Both are inspired by Ovid’s quote “𝘖𝘮𝘯𝘪𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳, 𝘯𝘪𝘩𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵". 

Self-portrait, 2022

Second Skin

Maria Fynsk Norup editions on Babylon - February 3, 2023

From the series "When he was gone", a short photo story exploring the feelings of the loss of a significant other.
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“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
― Emily Brontë


5733 × 3822⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
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The sound of silence I

A portfolio collection:

All that we are ~ body and mind, heart and soul, creatures of nature; earth and water, wind and sky. Where dreams flow and fly, feelings roar and whisper.

This collection is a room to encompass a curated selection of my stand-alone works.

Who are we? Everyone a rare amalgamation of flesh and blood, light and shadow, thought and feeling, sent adrift in this world to share love and inspiration - brief shooting stars in the sky of eternity...

Self-portrait
2018

3874 × 5424

The essense

All that we are

"Metamorphosis" (2022) 

"𝘖𝘮𝘯𝘪𝘢 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳, 𝘯𝘪𝘩𝘪𝘭 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵"  
-𝘖𝘷𝘪𝘥

Everything changes, nothing perishes.  
Unravel the chrysalis, unfold your wings  
Transformation an inexplicable pain  
You survive  
Emerging stronger and more beautiful.  
Every time.

(poem by me)

Metamorphosis

A layered photography collage, created as a collaboration piece with Rik Oostenbroek as part of his 2022 SELF challenge.

How do we see and percieve ourselves? Through the eyes of others or through the love and respect for ourselves and what we do? Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of and get lost in a comparison game. 

This work pushed all my buttons - I had so much fun just letting go and playing with a medium not quite inside my normal self expression - and finally finding use for a self portrait I had kicked to the curb. 
Then enter all the self doubts when I watched the incredible works ticking in from everywhere. And finally circling back to self love when I decided to release it all and just enjoy the process of creating something unique, just for me.

Minting it into the blockchain to anchor and preserve this experience.


4016 × 5197  
Sept. 2022

Self perception

The combined flow variations of the "Nature's Remembrance" series, airdropped to all first collectors. 

"Nature's Remembrance" consists of 12 variations - all unique, all 1/1s - each with their own expression, but within the same framework.

The series was created as a site specific work for my solo exhibition during the performance festival ØKANT in Marstal (DK) 2021. The series was shot inside the factory hall where my exhibition took place, to fulfil the festival prompt of artworks being locally and site specifically anchored.

Nature's Remembrance 1-12

The ancient Greek stories of the dryads, or forest nymphs, are full of drama, beauty and anthropomorphised ways of explaining the mythical or inexplicable in the natural world. The dryads were honoured as semi-godlike female spirits inhabiting trees and groves, often bound in such a way that their life itself was tied to the life of the trees. 

Many older cultures and religions show a similar reverence for nature, with beings akin to the dryads guarding trees and forests. In common for all was a respect for and belief in the sanctity of life of our natural surroundings, that to a large degree has been lost today.

Creating this ongoing project around these mythical beings is for me a way to lift the stories into our time, and remind people that our lives, like the dryads’, are equally bound to the life of the natural world. We as humans need to wake up to the fact that we have become reliant upon natural resources to the point of destroying the foundation of what we need to live. 

The series "Dryads - The tree-bound" was awarded an honourable mention in the Professional Fine Art section of the 17th Julia Margaret Cameron Award (part of the Worldwide Photography Gala Awards). 

Artist statement:  
The ancient Greek stories of the dryads, or forest nymphs, are full of drama, beauty and anthropomorphised ways of explaining the mythical or inexplicable in the natural world. The dryads were honoured as semi-godlike female spirits inhabiting trees and groves, often bound in such a way that their life itself was tied to the life of the trees. 

Many older cultures and religions show a similar reverence for nature, with beings akin to the dryads guarding trees and forests. The Japanese kodamas, the Indian Yakshini, as well as the more widely known elves and fairies are examples of these. In common for all was a respect for and belief in the sanctity of life of our natural surroundings, that to a large degree has been lost today.

Creating this project around these mythical beings is for me a way to lift the stories into our time, and remind people that our lives, like the dryads’, are equally bound to the life of the natural world. We as humans need to wake up to the fact that we have become reliant upon natural resources to the point of destroying the foundation of what we need to live. 

I wish to emphasise the mysterious, sometimes slightly eerie sensation you experience within older forests - when it feels like everything around you is alive, and someone might be watching. 

For the images of the dryads the aim is to create a range of scenes from the peaceful or idyllic to the dark and haunted, drawing inspiration from classical paintings of the nymphs, as well as from descriptions in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and texts from the Greek Mythology. 

As a self-portrait artist I have worked alone on this series, and have thus used myself for the dryad representations.

Where the wild things are

Dryads - The tree-bound

"Fritillaria Portrait II" is part of my 'Fritillaria Portrait series', a small series inspired by the work of Danish 19th century painter Vilhelm  Hammershøi, the tales of 1001 Nights, and the beauty of Oriental Fritillaries (Fritillaria persica).

(Self-portrait, 2018)

Fritillaria Portrait II

Self-portrait, 2020. 

Winner of the British Journal of Photography x Art3.io 365 competition, 2021.

Exhibited during my solo exhibition as part of the performance festival ØKANT, Marstal, DK, 2021.

This work was created towards the end of the covid19 lockdown here in Denmark, trying to express the feeling of being locked down, not just externally, but internally as well.

As a self-portrait artist, I am used to working alone from home and I love it. I can follow and act out my inspiration when it comes. During lockdown though, I found that my creativity disappeared completely, between homeschooling, childcare, worrying about the virus, my finances, and being around people 24-7.

This work was my way of expressing the feeling of literally crawling the ceiling - but also a kind of rebirth as creative ideas started flowing again.


Eye of the beholder

SuperRare

Faded Beauty / Falmet Skønhed - a self-portrait with dried Hydrangea. Originally created for the 2019 book "Falmet Skønhed" about the beauty of dried flower decorations and bouquets by Danish garden designer Dorthe Kvist and Maria Fynsk Norup. Published by Koustrup & Co.


Edition 1 of 1
4000x6000

Faded Beauty

{ origin }
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where the nerves of life, feeling and creativity spring ~ and sometimes so much pain as well, both physical and mental. It's amazing how some areas in our body can encompass such a vast array of feelings and senses, love, hate and everything in between.

Self-portrait, 2018.

--------------

I primarily use self-portraits as the medium for storytelling in my work, creating imagery that currently revolves around exploring the melancholy of being, the right to a place in the world, and the raw poetry of nature. My inspiration is often drawn directly from dreams, feelings and past experiences.

I was originally trained in classical botany, and the influence from the plant world thus often appears in the visual storytelling in my images.

Origin

Foundation

The "L & S" collection was minted for Easter 2023, in combination with the "Waiting for Alice" OE drop on Manifold. 
Photographed by Maria Fynsk Norup spring 2022 as a collaboration with her two daughters - one modelling, one co-directing.

L & S III

The "L & S" collection was minted for Easter 2023, in combination with the "Waiting for Alice" OE drop on Manifold.
Photographed by Maria Fynsk Norup spring 2022 as a collaboration with her two daughters - one modelling, one co-directing.

The "L & S" collection is a small Alice in Wonderland themed series  
created spring 2022 as a collaboration with my two daughters - one modelling, one co-directing.  
(Silver the Rabbit agreed to help for carrots.)

L & S IV

L & S

uncertain augury
life read into a sparrow tale
in a ritual for the dead

self-portrait, 2021

Uncertain augury II

Uncertain augury III

What lies beneath

Finding your light is sometimes a matter of looking deep inside your own darkness...

Self-portrait, 2017

Inner Reflection

I hate Mondays

Hic et Nunc

Inspired by the William Blake poem 'Auguries of Innocence':

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.”


Lagurus ovatus L. (Hare's Tail Grass) under ice.
2023

Eternity in an hour

A tribute to the quiet, hidden moments this island has come to mean for me. 
The moments you find when you walk slowly, get up early, and remember to be still...​​​​​​​​

Borgnæs,
Island of Ærø, DK
2017

Minted as a bidders edition for the 9th People of Tezos event September 2023

Bluescape

Pura vida

"The emerging body" is a series about exploring the feelings of light in the dark. On a superficial level, how light draws out and emphasizes a mood, and lends a classical, painterly touch to the storytelling reminiscent of Caravaggio.
But most importantly, it is a personal exploration of my journey from a body locked down by abuse and depression to learning to love the skin I'm in. It is a way of shining a light on the usually hidden breakdowns during years of healing - and thus it is healing in itself, by turning the camera on myself, teasing myself out of an introvert shell, and learning to actually SEE the beauty in the skin, flesh and blood I consist of.
Even when at my most vulnerable.

Emerging body II

The Emerging Body is an exploration of my journey from a body locked down by abuse and depression to learning to love the skin I'm in.  
"Emerging body I" is collected by the Tezos Foundation.

"The emerging body" is a series about exploring the feelings of light in the dark. On a superficial level, how light draws out and emphasizes a mood, and lends a classical, painterly touch to the storytelling reminiscent of Caravaggio.

But most importantly, it is a personal exploration of my journey from a body locked down by abuse and depression to learning to love the skin I'm in. It is a way of shining a light on the usually hidden breakdowns during years of healing - and thus it is healing in itself, by turning the camera on myself, teasing myself out of an introvert shell, and learning to actually SEE the beauty in the skin, flesh and blood I consist of.

Even when at my most vulnerable.

Emerging Body VII

Emerging body

90% of the proceeds of this artwork will be donated to #tezquakeaid

Self-portrait, Feb. 2023

Spring is coming

Editions by fine art photographer Maria Fynsk Norup

run wild in the fields of eternal youth
my feral heart

seek shelter where the smell of warm summer grass
drifts gently on the breeze

leave the rabbit-hole of darkness behind

(self-portrait, 2023)

Feral heart

Maria Fynsk Norup / Editions

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music"
Friedrich Nietzsche

Self-portrait, 2017

Break

The very first self-portrait series created by Maria Fynsk Norup in 2017

There is light within your reach. You have to go deep and find it 🖤
(Avijeet Das)

Self-portrait, 2017

Reach

Ballerina

When the song of the earth hums in tune with your heart beat.

Photographed on the island of Ærø November 12th 2016.

Morning Hymn

"Summer With Nemo II"

Nemo was the ugly duckling from a spring breed of runner ducks. He couldn't walk, only hop on one leg, so our adopted grandmother took him in and he spent a glorious half a year with her, sleeping on the couch or next to her, always in hands, and always coming along wherever she went. He was always little, and only developed his feathers late. Babysitting him one day I wanted to capture this special little creature, that we got to know all too short in the end. 
I'm glad I did.

Self-portrait, 2020

("Summer With Nemo I" was released as part of the Light.art Alpha Collection 2022)

Summer With Nemo II

Preserved Beauty II

Preserved Beauty VI

Preserved Beauty

The split  
between how you appear to the world  
and what goes on beneath the surface  

Wherein lies the boundary between us and the supernatural? 

Poltergeist [noun] 
(from German Polter, “noise” or “racket”; Geist, “spirit”): 
In occultism, a disembodied spirit or supernatural force credited with certain malicious or disturbing phenomena, such as inexplicable noises, sudden wild movements, or breakage of household items. Poltergeists are also blamed for violent actions — throwing stones or setting fire to clothing and furniture.  

(self-portrait, 2023)

Poltergeist

Emotions & Stories

"The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,
As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,
Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roam
In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,
And enters some alien cage in its plight,
And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars
While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars."
(Georgia Douglas Johnson; The heart of a woman)

Self-portrait, 2018

Raw morning

There is a power in the ocean.
She is life and death in equal measures.
 
Photographed on the island of Ærø, DK,
 2016

The water crown

The soul selects

Dragonflies, with their gossamer wings and iridescent bodies, embody the essence of ephemeral beauty. From the moment they emerge from the water to the day they take their final flight, dragonflies remind us of the transience of life, urging us to dream and cherish each moment.

Aeshna grandis (Brown Hawker). 
Found and documented on the island of Ærø, Denmark 2019 by my oldest daughter.
Specimen label created and attached digitally, April 2024.

Minted for #objkt4objkt 2024

Maria Fynsk Norup (mariafynsknorup)

Maria Fynsk Norup (mariafynsknorup)

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