studio kah Textile designer & teacher of the visual arts

Studio KAH is a surface pattern design studio based in Oslo, Norway, specializing in textile prints for fashion & interior collections. Studio KAH offers prints designed by hand, with a focus on timelessness, beautiful colours, originality and intention.

If you have any question regarding purchase of prints or a collaboration, email: post(@)studiokah.no

Get in touch to view available designs
What to expect

Leading Norwegian Textile design studio – High quality layered files – pay via invoice or stripe – work to you brief/commission for the identity of your brand – work with your color charts to create an intentional print story – become a vip customer and have first access to new designs

Selected work by Studio KAH

ART

Karen Gjelsvik Hetland is an illustrator with a Masters degree in Contemporary Art from Sotheby's Institute of Art in London.

In her artwork, she explores form and material. She mixes mediums like ink, soft watercolor and gouache with delicate pencil drawing. Further work on the illustrations are done digitally by playing with contrast, gradients, scale and format. She is intrigued by the way the ink flows and what happens spontaneously when materials mix.

Dancers

The series Dancers are a study of bodies in which flow, movement and emotions are explored through simple mediums like water, watercolour, ink and delicate pencil drawings. When the images are finished by hand, they are scanned in high resolution, cleaned up and prepared to give a pure and firm finish. The white is ultra-white, the black soft as velvet, with all nuances in between. Nothing is left to chance. The painted bodies are figurative though fragmented. They have speed and emotions, at the same time quietly melancholic and sometimes dreamy.

Dancing bodies, rhythm and movement. How to create a still image showing speed and movement? How to remove parts of the body and at the same time show a figurative expression, simultaneously soft and firm with contrasts exploring light and darkness?
Inverted

Only two images from this series are presented. They are important as they counteract the pure black-and-white images. Contrast is everything - both in each individual work and in the exhibition as a whole. The insects are first drawn, then painted in watercolour, ink and gouache. Thereafter scanned and worked on digitally to give a new expression. The colours present as negatives, the colour black as velvety soft and complete. The artist is fascinated by insects: they are beautiful yet grotesque, delicate and mythical. Here, they are transformed to dark individuals and scaled to giants.

The images are printed digitally on Epson large format printer, on photorag 308g paper. They are signed and numbered in 15 or 35 copies. Matched white passepartout, glass and black frames. The expression is firm, pure and simple. All images are available for sale, prices from NOK 5000 – 14 000,- + 5% BKH

From the exhibition at PitStop Frysja – December '21 to December'22 Curated @bybjørkheim