Biography

Evy Olsen Halvorsen (aka Halvorsen Holstein) was born in northern Norway and currently lives in Kingston WA. Evy and her parents immigrated in 1956 to the neighborhood of Ballard in Seattle WA. After graduation from High School, Evy moved briefly to San Francisco before landing in Kitsap County with husband and daughters. After raising her daughters, owning a couple of businesses, she continued her education at Cornish College of the Arts, receiving her Bachelor of Fine Arts, cum laude in 1999, in Painting and Printmaking. “Perhaps because of the landscape of my childhood I am drawn to creating a sense of space, color. Norway is a dramatic country especially the islands I come from which are above the Arctic circle. I love that open country, sharp mountains rising out of the sea, the quickly changing sky. Not unlike the home I have here, water, mountains and open skies.” “ Landscape dwells large in my consciousness. The landscape of time, space and color. This space around us all weighs on me, as a comfort and a challenge. Color is my guide to finding my way around this space, anchoring and directing my thoughts, taking me home. The images I’m drawn to may be a literal translation or an abstracted vision of terrain and memory. A color impression, a botanical image or a visiting traveler may occupy the surface I attempt to fill. It is still always about the space, the welcoming space” . “The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience which in its very nature transcends linguistics.” D.T. Suzuki