I never decided to be an artist, I accepted it rather, as my mind, since I was a teenager, simply and intuitively creates work. I see images, colors, forms, creatures, and sensations floating behind my retina, and so, like an extra dimension of sense and sensitivity, I make art with this stream of inner sensations combined with my lust and intellectual eagerness to understand ideas, psychology, emotions, memory, and history.
In an art-theoretical context, I wish to visually map the female gaze.
The work also explores Eros and what it means in the hands of a woman artist. For me—and not far from the thinking of the surrealists—emotions are inseparable from my sexuality and vice versa: my sexuality is inseparable from my emotions. The body is a landscape of ever-changing emotions, dreams, fantasies, and the subconscious. This is in sharp contrast to the traditional “male gaze-beauty” or the porn industry, where the female body is stripped bare of her emotional intelligence, trauma, spirituality, the subconscious, and mind. The work understands Eros as totally free from consumerism. Thus, I try to make images of this emotional and inner poetic understanding of the female body, of which we do not have many examples in art history.
My life and art are one, meaning a consistent and ever-evolving work that embodies a freedom challenging all institutions—whether art history itself, my Self, patriarchy, social constraints, or religions. My work transcends a “formal” language, blurring the boundaries between life and art. Some of my work is created with human muses.
In an art historical context I research on a new canon of art history where women artists are included. Throughout history, feminist artwork and gender studies have not been allowed to transform us—or our art history—to the extent originally intended. Instead of women being seen as “the other,” merely attempting to disrupt art history through artistic negotiations of our conditions of difference (historical, social, cultural), we are actively reshaping the canon of art.
Over the past two decades, Augusta Atla has exhibited extensively at Danish institutions, including: Viborg Kunsthal, Charlottenborg Kunsthal, Museet for Samtidskunst, Kunsthal Rønnebæksholm, Sophienholm Kunsthal and Brandts. Her work has also been exhibited at international institutions, for example: REMAP4 Contemporary Art Festival, Athens Greece; Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Spain; Tou Scene, Stavanger, Norway; Akademie der Künste, Berlin, Germany; Center for Contemporary Art, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, France; The Danish Institute in Athens, Greece; Tallinna Kunstihoone, Estonia; Michael Cacoyannis Foundation, Athens, Greece.
Augusta Atla’s artwork features in national Danish collections: for example, Horsens Kunstmuseum, Denmark, Randers Kunstmuseum, Denmark, the Danish Art Council, Denmark and The Danish Parliament, Denmark.
Augusta Atla is educated in London, UK between 2003-2007. Between 2007 and 2016, after the education, Augusta lived like a nomad, years in Venice, Rome, Athens, Paris. An ‘art pilgrimage’, visiting the works of the masters of European art, researching religious iconography and exploring the history of Greek Antiquity.
From 2014 to 2016, Augusta founded, curated and ran MAISON d’ART CONTEMPORAIN ATHÈNES (MACA) in Athens, Greece.
Augusta Atla promotes and researches about artworks by women artists and uses the instagram profile @womenpainters as a memory board.
@ PUBLIC, NATIONAL OR MAJOR PRIVATE ART COLLECTIONS
The Danish Art Council, Denmark
Horsens Kunstmuseum, Denmark
Randers Kunstmuseum, Denmark
The Danish Parliament, Denmark
Dimitris Daskalopoulou, Greece
Collezione Viafarini, Italy
Augusta Atla is also a passionate art critic and lecturer, and a politically engaged writer on the politics of art. Augusta Atla interviewed the Danish Minister of Culture in 2022 regarding the gender discrimination issues in the world of contemporary art and the gender gap in the practice of the state-supported museums of Denmark.
Augusta Atla believes that the canon of art history is open-ended, that is, art theory and its archiving is in urgent need of a total re-arrangement and re-thinking – and new works of art that tackles a fresh and new understanding on our history, institutions and sexualities.
Augustas Atla articles have been published in Berlingske, Dagbladet Information, Politiken, Magasinet Kunst, CHART Publication, Kulturmonitor, Børsen, Weekendavisen, Fagbladet Billedkunstneren and Jyllands-Posten.
Between 2022-2023 Augusta had a monthly column at Kunsten.nu .
Follow my writing in English:
https://augustaatla.substack.com
Augusta Atla gives artist talks and lectures at universities and art institutions, including the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Princeton University, and the Accademia di Belli Arte di Venezia, just to name but a few.
Augusta Atla has previously exhibited at the galleries: Alice Folker Gallery (DK), Gallery Specta (DK), David Risley Gallery (DK), Avlskarl Gallery (DK), Format Artspace (DK), CAN Gallery (GR), Charlotte Fogh Gallery (DK), Banja Rathnov Gallery (DK), Change and Partner Gallery (IT), AD Gallery (GR), LMN Gallery (NO).
Augusta Atla was granted art awards by the Danish Art Council in 2011, 2012 + 2024 and residencies at the National Workshops of Copenhagen in 2006, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2022. Atla has also been supported by Danish private arts foundations and Danish institutions and embassies.
Augusta received an Award of Excellence from the Fine Art faculty of Goldsmiths, University of London in 2006 and the Horsens Art Museum Art Award in 2007.
Augusta Atla received a work grant from the Finn Nørgaard Association in 2025.
Augusta Atla is a member of Akademiet and
