Unmatched and unfiltered, an art practice rarely seen.

Meet multimedia artist Mia-Nelle Drøschler and join her on an honest spiritual journey.

artSIStra interview // Henriette Hellstern // Dec.6.2025 // Præstø // Denmark

Drøschler starts with “me, me, me” and ends with “us, us, us”. She is a vibrant artist, connected to her dialogue-creating artworks, a special primal force that illuminates diverse aspects of life, which makes us spiritually stronger. So unfold your ears, listen, open your eyes wide, and learn. 

“The owl woke me at 6:30 a.m.” Mia-Nelle Drøschler says with a radiant smile as we meet. “And I’ve been ready for hours, I misread the time”, she adds, following it with a crooked, welcoming grin. We agree there is something thoroughly “Cinderella-like” in surrendering oneself to the owl, the oak trees, the chickens, and the neighbor’s bull, slipping into their rhythm and forgetting time and place entirely.

LAND SHAPES US, oil on canvas, 2025

LAND SHAPES US

Four years ago, Drøschler moved to the countryside, closer to the intimate, the quiet, the enchanted. LAND SHAPES US is the title of the series she is currently working on, unfolding over the course of an entire year, a year now nearing its conclusion. The works range from stoic trees to unnaturally large beetles and witch grass that, at times, become fire, water, and wind. Farmdog Bella watches us with wide, lucid eyes, quietly following the conversation as daylight slowly settles over the three-winged farm in Præstø.

I am wrapped in nature outside, yes, but just as palpably on the canvas. I can hear grass growing inside the painting; at moments, the figurines seem to turn and look back at me. In Drøschler’s practice, the boundary between art and artist dissolves. Where one begins and the other ends is impossible to say. This is a lifelong process, the multidisciplinary artist explains, in which she is always “holding on to the tail of the dragon”.

Raised in Tikøb, then years in Helsingør and Copenhagen, and educated at Goldsmiths in London, where the art scene was thoroughly explored before the return to the small home waters, Drøschler stands before me as a seasoned artist. Yet she is also clearly a human being on a journey, on a mission toward a more healing and nourishing way of living. Her practice centers on Nordic shamanism and animism, grounded in listening, sensing, and interpreting in close, ongoing exchange with nature.

A wise woman in the field

The last words I wrote about Drøschler’s practice before falling asleep the night before our interview were “euphoria, dopamine, control, let go,” I tell her. She bursts into laughter and agrees that they fit her current work perfectly. “After all, I am the wise woman in the field,” she says, speaking of her clairvoyance, ritual night sittings during full moons, and her deep connection to the nature we are collectively in the midst of completely fucking up. When I ask her how she speaks with nature, her answer is immediate: “I speak LOUD.” We cheer at the image she has just conjured, raw, necessary, and utterly present.

“It’s a dialogue,” the artist explains, as she opens up her authorship of poetry and bestselling nonfiction, alongside drawings, sculptures, and performance. Drøschler is always in motion, always in process, and I love her for it.

We discover that we share the same agenda: the relentless urge to surpass oneself with each new work. We breathe easily at the thought “imagine having already made your best work”. “Terrifying”, we agree. She notes that this investigative approach, this refusal to let the art settle, is something she carried home with her from London.

More analog, more presence

For 2025, the artist has set herself a dogma: “more analog approach.” The focus is on drawing, painting, and writing. Writing takes place upstairs, overlooking the fields, surrounded by art, because the body, she knows, needs shifts in atmosphere and stretches of calm between the more physical, forceful gestures that unfold on canvas below, in the studio. As the wind pulls at the old, beautiful yellow building, she shares her reflections generously. “I make art on art’s own terms,” she says, and I fall in love with a painting where the tree trunk seems to dissolve into a winter landscape, where hard frost presses deep into the soul.

I am standing before an artist who has lived, who has seen things. Raised by a mother with paranoid schizophrenia, who died at the age of fifty, and shaped by her own past as a recovering alcoholic, Drøschler carries a creative force that keeps ideas in motion and energy flowing, day and night.

LAND SHAPES US, oil on canvas, 2025

Excerpt from poetry collection, 2025

We must listen closely

Once you have experienced Drøschler’s art, the longing begins. We need her universe, courage, visions, and stories of animism, shamanism, and nights spent sitting out under the moon. We must have this voice that can reflect what we are doing, holding up mirrors shaped from one masterful work after another, and we must listen closely. Drøschler starts with “me, me, me” and ends with “us, us, us”. She is a vibrant artist, connected to her dialogue-creating artworks, a special primal force that illuminates diverse aspects of life, which makes us spiritually stronger. So unfold your ears, listen, open your eyes wide, and learn.  

LAND SHAPES US, oil on canvas, 2025

I cast one final glance at the artist’s latest painting and feel flooded with dopamine, sorrow, gratitude, and euphoria all at once. I know I have witnessed something rare. And I hope the art world understands that one of the country’s finest expressionists lives in Præstø, beneath the oak tree, beside the chicken coop, where the owl still keeps watch, just a little while longer.