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From 2025, in his studio in the heart of Aarhus, Denmark, Philip Hauge Reitz works professionally and primarily with abstract painting. However, his path – before dedicating himself fully to visual art – began much earlier, initially rooted in graphic/digital design, electronic music production, and sound design.
His acrylic paintings, ranging from large-scale works to smaller pieces, reflect this multifaceted approach to art. Created mainly on cotton canvas, his works harmoniously combine strokes, lines, and colors in a captivating mix, where even the titles contribute to surprising and fascinating the viewer.
Imaginative titles ignite curiosity, teasing our desire to understand and explore further, giving the works that intriguing eccentricity that art should always evoke and celebrate.
Lend me your soul and an oat cappuccino is an expanse of closely set brushstrokes alternating darker and lighter shades of pink. We find ourselves searching for a foothold to connect the work to its title, lingering in contemplation and unknowingly achieving Philip’s goal: to pause, observe, and reflect.
The same sensation arises with The streets were filled with sandwiches or Never Ever: the curled lines seem to outline a musical staff, and we can almost hear jazz music in this electrifying work.
In Do not drink it – one of the smaller works, mixed media on a wooden panel, 20 × 20 cm – a bottle drifts among bands of muted colors in soft shades of gray and pale yellow. Torn pieces of canvas, in harmony with these gentle hues, create a surreal atmosphere within the small space, where the bottle becomes the protagonist of a story.
Across all the small-format works, we always encounter atmospheres that tell stories, sometimes through text – as in I used to fuck here – which become short narratives enclosed within narrow canvases. Delicate brushstrokes, as in Ha ha no way, define the waves of a pink-hued sea.
Other works feature more explicit and witty text in bright colors, such as I can fix you or My girl is better than yours, where two frightened wide eyes are immersed in a labyrinth of apple-green brushstrokes.
Irony, wit, the pleasure of transcribing thoughts: in Philip Hauge Reitz’s works we also perceive a refined and graceful closeness of colors, always well-chosen nuances that form shaded mosaics in infinite tonal variations.
Condensing words, ideas, music, sounds, and feelings into a small painting, and then images, film fragments, videos, colors, shades, and finally silence. Even as the mind wanders and words flow instinctively. This is how Philip’s stories are born, and we delight in them.
Works on paper are fleeting ideas trapped in rows of brushstrokes, always marked by spot-on tones and pairings, an enticing invitation to imagine them hanging anywhere, on walls freed from anonymity, resting on a worktable, glued into a journal or the beginning of a collection.
In his experimental works, Philip Hauge Reitz adopts an approach that highlights the contrast between a rigorous structure and his colorful brushstrokes—never the same, always innovative. From gallery exhibitions in Aarhus and Samsø to shops in Copenhagen, Philip’s art has earned recognition for its chromatic sensitivity and its ambient sound-based background, which lends each work a uniquely sensory creativity.
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