Maja Lisa Engelhardt

Maja Lisa Engelhardt (born 1956) is a Danish painter whose works are inspired by the landscapes of north-western Zealand where she was brought up.

[1] Engelhardt was born on 2 May 1956 in Frederiksberg, a wealthy part of Copenhagen, as the daughter of Knud Harald Jensen and his wife Elli Rasmussen.

[2] She grew up in the Sejerø Bay area on the Odsherred peninsula in west Zealand where she experienced a difficult childhood with an alcoholic mother and a threatening father, increasingly jealous of her artistic talents.

[2] Since 1981, she has lived with her husband Peter Brandes in Colombes just outside Paris but her works have continued to be inspired by the nature she experienced on Sejrø Bay during her childhood.

[1] Her images are essentially abstract but they always contain memories of the Danish landscape with strong connections to nature expressed in bright, rich colours ranging from solidly sketched sections to hazy, almost weightless fragments.