Hanne Laland (b. 1973, Stavanger, Norway) lives near the sea in the south of Norway. She is an autodidact artist and also a psychological therapist and yoga teacher. She has her education from Asian philosophy and lived two years (2004-2006) in Tokyo where she started painting with ink.

Her art creation is a mix between figurative and abstract. She works on canvas, linen, paper and steel. Her mediums are acrylic, Japanese ink, pencil and pastel and her favourite tools are calligraphy brushes. The ink and the brushes give her a special freedom.

She is fascinated by simplicity in our complicated world. To understand people, situations and why we are as we are or do as we do have driven her since childhood. A driven feeling for understanding, for seeing what is behind. At work, she always wants to communicate a feeling or a bit of the souls of her motifs, rather than just painting an aesthetic face. The eyes, the hands or the body language in her pictures play their parts. The balance/unbalance between black and white does play a part. She likes the challenge it gives her to express the message only in black and white. Black and white make the duality, stillness and chaos, light and dark. She finds inspiration in the Asian philosophy and thinks that the wheat culture has a lot to learn from the rice culture when it comes to focus on inner peace and its value.

Hanne thinks that all people are searching for balance, but the way of finding this could be a challenge. When people are opening up, they let the guard down and let someone in. That is the moment you can see a bit of their soul. To experience that fascinates her.

Hanne Laland has displayed her art in different art events in Norway. Her breakthrough came in China in 2017 at Museum of contemporary art, Beijing.