Elisabeth Medbøe is a Norwegian artist with attachment to Assam, India. She received her art education in Norway and conducted research on aesthetics in India. Her practice reflects an ongoing exploration of various aesthetic traditions and their visual expressions, with a particular focus on the human relationship with nature.

Working across a range of techniques and materials, including textiles, paper, and wood, she often incorporates inlays of discarded technological fragments and abandoned objects.

Through this material approach, her work brings together tactile craftsmanship and conceptual reflection, inviting viewers to a dialogue about notions of value, memory, and ecological responsibility.

In her work, Medbøe has drawn inspiration from European cultural heritage, Norwegian folk art, and extended travels and residencies involving the study and exploration of various cultures’ relationships to nature and aesthetics, including those of Mexico, Egypt, Palestine, and diverse Indian cultures. In recent years, she has spent time with the indigenous Karbi community in Assam.

Medbøe has experimented with a wide range of modes of expression and materials, consistently driven by a pursuit of knowledge, insight, and understanding. All the works have been created as part of a process, involving reflections on what she wished to explore and express. The questions posed have determined the choice of materials and formal language, ranging from textiles, collages, and miniatures on paper and wood, to three-dimensional small boxes containing painted miniatures, as well as freestanding sculptures, objects, and installations.

The fundamental experience of belonging to nature, and of different cultures’ perceptions of it, is what unifies the wide variation in modes of expression and use of materials. This has accompanied Medbøe since her debut at the National Autumn Exhibition in 1979, where she presented a miniature tapestry featuring a study of a mountain landscape in mist, utilising the expressive qualities of varied textile textures. It continued with her debut exhibition in 1984, where themes concerning the passage of history began to take shape—how human actions and activities accumulate in layers within nature, comprising fragments of lives lived since time immemorial.

She delineates, through her own narrative, the important junctures that influenced her philosophical perspective and artistic practice:

Toledo, Spain, 1982.
During a study trip with the Norwegian National Academy of Fine Arts, I gained insight into how Toledo, under Moorish rule, had been a site where diverse traditions of knowledge and religions met in open dialogue and exchange of worldviews, and that this formed an important intellectual foundation for the Renaissance.

This experience led me to recognise the existence of multiple narratives and that the knowledge I had previously received was largely Eurocentric. It prompted a commitment to move beyond the European cultural sphere, to encounter histories told from different perspectives and to explore the challenges faced by artists and their visual languages in other cultural contexts.

Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank,1985.
Throughout 1985, I resided in Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank. During this period, I did spend time with Egyptian and Palestinian artists, while also being affiliated with a centre of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which provided employment for Palestinian refugee women through embroidery.

I was introduced to ancient narratives, including accounts of Ibn Battuta, as well as to Islamic history and more recent histories of the colonial period. And I received numerous personal testimonies—stories of life, of attachment to the land, of displacement from Palestine, of the grief of no longer being able to live within the nature and culture to which one belonged, and of life in exile as a refugee.

Conversations with visual artists and art historians about fine art and visual languages proved a significant insight, leading to the recognition on how aesthetics are profoundly shaped by cultural and religious codes. Conceptions and understandings of human existence within nature and the universe, and of the interconnectedness of all things, are embedded within aesthetic expression; yet these underlying dimensions are often overlooked, with visual language taken for granted or the use of visual means insufficiently reflected upon.

Much of what I had previously taken for granted—such as composition and the illusion of the third dimension created through light and shadow as an assertion of reality—had in fact, not posed a challenge for visual artists in Muslim societies. To understand the underlying tradition, I turned to miniature painting and its analysis. Miniatures—small-scale images typically found in manuscripts—constituted visual language within Islamic philosophy and traditions.

After the breakthrough of Modernism, there has been extensive experimentation with visual forms on a larger scale, though most often within established religious and cultural frameworks.

The expression of humility emerges as a central principle in miniature painting. The realm of light and shadow belongs to God’s creation; to imitate it too closely may be regarded as an act of hubris. Moreover, it is not for the individual to claim complete knowledge: “I depict what I know, yet I acknowledge that there is always more.” Thus, compositions remain within two dimensions, while simultaneously suggesting continuation beyond the frame; visually, the narrative appears to extend outside the frame. Depictions of nature—featuring human beings, animals, birds, and trees—are integrated into a harmonious interplay of colour. Surrounding ornamentation, whether geometric or organic, is imbued with symbolic meaning and may in principle extend infinitely; what is visible is only a fragment of a larger whole. It is considered inappropriate to produce visual representations or illusions that conflict with fundamental religious and philosophical principles.

Encountering this alternative mode of thought provided me with new conceptual tools for reflection, even though my own approach was not grounded in religious belief.

India, from 1986 onwards

Through a cultural exchange scholarship, I was enrolled at Banaras Hindu University, at Bharat Kala Bhavan, the university museum. There, I continued my research of miniature painting and aesthetics in Indian art, while also working in the printmaking studio of Lalit Kala Akademi at Garhi Studios in Delhi.

The aesthetics of Hinduism are largely concerned with iconography—what characterises the many figures within its rich pantheon and the symbolic meanings embedded in their representations. Here again, the use of perspective was not regarded as a central artistic challenge.

Central perspective had, in fact, been employed in Buddhist cave paintings along the Silk Road several centuries before its adoption in Europe. In Europe, however, it was later claimed to be an European innovation. During the colonial period, such claims were even used to argue that this “European innovation” demonstrated a higher level of intelligence compared to the rest of the world.

Within Buddhist and Hindu thought, perspective involving light and shadow was associated with earthly existence, whereas artistic concern has often been directed towards expressing eternal forces of the universe—abstract concepts given form through a multitude of figures, enabling the human mind to engage, meditate on, and sense the universe and energies of which we are a part. Consequently, the exploration of perspective was not considered an artistic challenge or pursuit.

In Indian traditions, there are no visual taboos. Instead, artists have explored other concepts, such as the presence of energy within matter, as seen in extraordinary cave complexes where entire cosmologies of deities and beings unfold across carved and painted surfaces. While perspective may assert a singular, fixed viewpoint, Indian visual traditions have often sought to convey the mutable nature of existence, emphasising the relative importance of elements through their proportions. This gave rise to a distinct visual language that developed along its own trajectories.

Hinduism has a dominant mainstream form, rooted in the Vedas and Brahmanism, which is the version most commonly known in Europe. However, it encompasses innumerable variations and local traditions originating from diverse cultures since time immemorial. Concepts of Mother Earth, fertility, and magic form the foundation of many of these traditions; spirits, deities, and other forces are believed to inhabit trees, mountains, rivers, and other natural phenomena.

Hinduism may thus be understood as a symbiotic and conglomerate tradition, shaped by the many cultures historically incorporated under Hindu systems of belief and governance.

During the colonial period, European classical art was taught; however, India’s independence roughly coincided with the breakthrough of modernism, leading to a new wave of artists who began to explore visual expression grounded in the country’s diverse and richly layered artistic traditions.

For me in my own art production concepts such as time, space, movement, the cyclical, and frozen moments within the flow of earthly life became important to explore visually—initially as miniatures on paper, later developing into small boxes in which the interior space contains three-dimensional figures while the exterior is adorned with painted miniatures. Over time, she enlarged these three-dimensional figures and presented them independently within the spatial environment.

After some time, I moved to Assam in North-East India. There, the role of the artists were closely aligned with that of cultural activists, organising and participating in workshops with communities in villages who had longstanding craft traditions and distinctive cultural expressions, with the aim of bringing these practices to wider attention. Assam is characterised by significant cultural diversity, and through this work I met several Indigenous cultures, among which the Karbi community has become the closest to me; it is also where I primarily resides when in India.

The many years spent living alongside people in different countries and cultural contexts, often under varying material conditions, strengthened my social engagement. These experiences laid the foundation for continuing an activist role, directly employing my artistic practice as a form of activism in Norway. Issues such as farmers’ livelihoods, loss of nature, climate change and environmental toxins came into focus. It became important to exhibit in alternative venues beyond conventional galleries—at thematic evenings and debates in cafés, at venues such as the library, and similar settings. For several years, I was active in FIAN, working on issues related to global food systems and farmers’ living conditions, contributing articles and participating in events, including presenting works such as "What can we serve, or what are we being served?” and “The Negotiating Table.”

Working within artist collectives presented a new set of challenges. I was a co-founder of Concerned Artists Norway (CAN) in 2014 and remained active until 2018. In various group constellations, I exhibited twice at the Tøyen metro station, participated in the Sørlandsutstillingen, and organised Kunstnernes åpne Klimamikk (KåK) at the local library. I was also involved in the Klimafestivalen § 112, including organising the documentation exhibition Climate and Environment in Art, which aimed to create platforms where artists working with these themes could present their work.

Paragriffen, a mascot for Article 112 of the Norwegian Constitution, took the form of an almost four-metre-long dragon whose scales were knitted by participants from across the country involved in the Grandparents’ Climate Campaign. It has since been carried in numerous demonstrations and public events addressing climate and environmental issues.

When Greenpeace and Natur og Ungdom brought a lawsuit against the Norwegian state in 2016—commonly referred to as the Norwegian climate lawsuit 2016—I was among representatives of several supporting organisations who collaborated to organise cultural events across the country. These included lectures, concerts, and artistic presentations aimed at raising knowledge and awareness of the case. This close collaborative effort continued over several years as the case progressed through the legal system, until the onset of the pandemic.

The last years I have been documenting Karbi objects in the collection of The Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo and writing these objects into a cultural context.

Birds both in nature and in art has been a source of inspiration all through my life. In my own art production, I’m now working on the project “We mirror ourselves in birds”.