Nine years ago when I met Jasmin in an artist collective in Trondheim, she seemed like a type who mastered absolutely everything in life. She ate what the stores threw away at the end of the day, knew all about crafts, was able to realize all kinds of art projects on her own. In every way, it seemed like she didn’t need anyone. Apart from me, I must have thought when I hit on her. We ran off right away, on a road trip from Norway to Germany to Belgium to Great Britain and Ireland to France to Spain, where we got married, on to Morocco, Western Sahara and back. I showed her what life was for me, and she what it was for her. And we found a great meeting point in art. From the time we left, I continuously took pictures of her with an analogue Olympus camera. There was beauty around us wherever we turned and I was so in love through the 50mm lens. After that, we have opened and closed chapters so incredible and so painful that they have changed everything. Mental illness has made life extremely difficult. Now none of us are someone who masters everything and doesn’t need anyone. But after many difficult years we bought a house in the countryside and after drastically changing my life and personality things became much better. But a few months ago I told Jasmin that I want to spend more time with her. We always work. It has always been that way. In the house I have a room for everything. I have a music room, a photo and film studio, a video editing station, a writing corner, and a paper doll studio. And she has a barn that will become a workshop and a studio. It’s a work paradise. But I felt alone with most emotions. And she felt alone with things that had to be done in the house. The painful truth is that I can’t be present in anything other than art, so she was alone in all the work in an old house from 1921. We have had the house for a year now. Everything was ugly for so long. But then there was beauty and I could see it. Perfection. Therefore, I took the camera in my hands again. It’s not like I didn’t love her before. But I love her so much better through the lens. I’m terribly bad at life. That’s not going to change. But with the camera, I’m pretty good. And we spend whole days together. She’s no longer alone. I’m no longer alone. We share feelings. When I’m tired, I’m tired with her. I’m in a good or bad mood, with her. We’re together, through my old 50mm lens. It’s soon the summer of 2021. For a while I dreaded it. The summers have been so painful. All of them. But this is going to be a good summer. Life is going to be amazing in all its beauty. I’ll pursue the perfection that will bring me happiness, but not just me, also my spouse, my lover, my colleague and my best friend Jasmin Hurst.
Every Saturday I get to use Jasmin as a model in photos I direct. I construct a lot of them. The rest of the days I have to follow her. It’s weird for her to pose as a model. She says she’s not that fond of it, but she’s still so good at it. But we sacrifice something occasionally for the pictures to be so beautiful. The quiet and calm Saturday mornings when you are free and anything can happen. Instead there is a photo shoot. But it is complex. The pictures I take of her can be extremely beautiful and regardless of whether I know that it sometimes costs her a lot, it’s a way to show her how beautiful she is. It’s just that she doesn’t care about it as much as I do, so I sacrifice certain things for beauty. She deserves a freshly picked bouquet of flowers on the table and coffee every morning. And to know how much she is loved several times a day. And how beautiful she is. But it has never been more complex. Art makes everything complex. It has become complex to love her now that it has blended with aesthetics. Beauty is therefore not always as easy to unite with life as I might have thought. Truth is important to me as I said. But what about the truth about her. Truth and beauty have a quarrel in the middle of our lives. The true story and the beautiful story. Life and art. And I’m extremely dependent on having full control and taking the pictures I direct, so art is a certain control despite how free it can seem. I control the story. I have the power. And Jasmin needs neither control nor power. But then she hasn’t felt as powerless in life in general. Nor with such a lack of control as I have had. Therefore, after all, this is a way to love her as if I had a second chance or several lives. In one of them we collapse and in another we float away. I’m happy, but not in the usual way. It’s more like art is holding happiness captive. And in the middle of that, I’m supposed to love.