As seen in OPLEV, today a section of the Danish newspaper Frederiksborg Amtsavis in Sjælland.

A full portrait was written of me by the Danish reporter Lars Jørgensen and photographer: Jørgen Chr. Jørgensen:

Read a full summary in English below:

Last year visual artist Mia-Nelle Drøschler and her husband Svenn Hove moved from the small Copenhagen apartment to an old, four-lane farm in Sydsjælland. And they have not regretted it.

The move to Jungshoved near Præstø has of course brought more space and more peace – and the new setting has also meant that Mia-Nelle’s artistic work has gained more flow and is not disturbed by practical space problems, sounds from neighbors or noise from the street.

It was otherwise not clear that the 44-year-old artist would have to leave the city in favor of grass underfoot and a view of the vast expanses.

I have lived in Great Britain for six years – four years in London and two years in Glasgow. It was also there I went to art college and where I have my best connection both professionally and emotionally. I have also lived for several years in Copenhagen – and have spent a lot of time for the past five years in Rome. So I have always been attracted to the big cities, Mia-Nelle tells us, when we meet her over a cup of coffee in the studio, which is immediately adjacent to the farm’s living and recreation rooms – and which has a room on the first floor where she works with his texts and book drafts.

Multiple directions

Earlier this year, she published the autobiographical poem collection “Love, love, love”, has a teaching book on painting on the stairs and is currently writing a prose text that takes as its point of departure the first-person narrator who also appears in the collection of poems.

On the table is a book about the Russian painter Wassily Kaninsky. It could just as well have been literature about the French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson and his views on intuition, which currently preoccupies Mia-Nelle a lot. The visual arts and literature thus go hand in hand.

At the moment, the artist is working on a total of around 30 paintings, which the curator must choose from for her solo exhibition in Copenhagen in February.

Of course, it requires space, and the couple has had plenty of it. Even for cheap money.

I had a studio at the old air station in Værløse. It is a fantastic place, but probably now costs around DKK 6,000 per month. I jokingly told my husband that we could buy a farm in the country for the same money I gave in studio rent. It actually turned out to be true, laughs Mia-Nelle.

After probing the terrain around Sjælland, they ended up on the four-long yellow farm, where Mia-Nelle’s studio is almost literally right on the other side of the door to the living room and kitchen. Only a small glass corridor separates the studio and the private residence. However, she does not fear that work and leisure will overlap too much

Something magical is happening in the glass corridor. Just because I can go out one door and in through another door means I’m making a switch. I have worked at home before, where it was much more “blurry” because I lived and worked in the same space. So that was also one of the criteria when we looked at a new place to live; that I should be able to go to and from it, she says, but at the same time emphasizes the importance of calmness and no logistical difficulties in relation to getting to and from work.

Inside the city, I almost had to pick up my works every day. Here I’m much more in flow and in the zone with the things I’m doing, says Mia-Nelle and points in particular to the lyrics in relation to the good impact of the rural surroundings.

I don’t think I would be able to write in the city. It requires a special place both mentally and physically before I can immerse myself in a text. It’s something I’m learning. There, the painting is much more of an object that I can go to and from. The text is in my head, and to get it out, I need the peace that I find here, she says and continues:

Just the fact that I have the painting down here and the room upstairs to write and draw means something. The physical and separate spaces also do something to the creative spaces in the head. It is also a good thing about having moved, she smiles.

Using the city differently

However, the many years in Copenhagen and other European cities do not deny themselves. Mia-Nelle and Svenn, who are church servants in the capital, have kept their apartment in the city.

I don’t miss the city on weekdays. I use it completely differently when I now go in there every few weeks. Then I go to exhibitions and meet people. When I lived in Copenhagen, it was something that was constantly postponed, she says.

Whether the tranquility and life in the countryside is also reflected in her visual art is still an open question.

I have been on residencies in both Berlin and Rome several times. And when I got home, I could see that there had been a change in colors or motifs. So I think there is an influence from the surroundings you find yourself in. But right now I’m so much in the eye of the hurricane that I can’t really see it from the outside, she says, flailing her arms in the large studio , while she smiles:

I hope to grow old here. I am otherwise very extroverted and have always had a lot of fire in me. But I can feel that I have gained a completely different groundedness, which is actually very nice. Now I’m also 44 years old – and I don’t always need to act like a 24-year-old.