Hraefn has worked as a creative since the early 1990s as a painter, filmmaker, production designer, sculptor and brand advisor. His name, Hraefn, is pronounced ‘raven’ (it’s Anglo-Saxon).
His studies at The Evergreen State College, WA and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston led to his work in a variety of places around the US, including Hollywood and eventually, Utah.
Norse themes inhabit some of his paintings, and he’s found while performing rune readings professionally that audiences are eager to learn more about this ancient symbolic system for oracle and intuitive work.
He has studied Runes, artistically and academically, for most of his life, and has a book in production now on this subject for release in 2026.
One great appeal of runes is that they are ‘earthier’ than tarot, astrology or the I Ching. He invites, you, too, to engage in rune readings with him!
Photography by http://marcreynolds.studio/
Artistic Concerns and Influences
Hraefn is interested in the sensual, the spiritual and the ancient- fueled by a powerful legacy of dreams, visions and visitations with benevolent, non-terrestrial intelligence. Painting is one of the ways he can reflect on (and share) these epic, mystical experiences.
The Science Fiction, Fantasy and New Age artists of the 1970s and 1980s fascinated Hraefn. Other influences included background artists on the classic Disney films and Ralph McQuarrie’s Star Wars visions. In studying them all, he really started to understand form, texture and light. These influences have done much to shape his vibrant palette as well.
Techniques
He is always experimenting with the light illusion and much of his style is built around the concept of sculpting with light. His work in other mediums including production design and art direction contributed a lot to this understanding.
Creating physical shapes and structures allowed him to bring light into the third dimension. It permitted him to look at my imagined forms in a real-world context which made his two-dimensional work stronger. Merging two and three-dimensional realms is always a thrill.
High Strangeness
He was the child of artistic, back-to-nature flower children and raised in the wilds of rural Northeastern Washington State. They were essentially pioneers; building a paradise of their own from scratch. He was taught to think critically and question everything. Necessity trained him to be both creative and innovative at a very early age. If he wanted it, he had to figure out how to make it with the tools and materials at hand.
At age two, he had the first of several visitations by a non-terrestrial intelligence which would recur throughout his life and has profoundly influenced his work, spirituality and purpose.
