Laust Højgaard Creates Grotesque, Post‑apocalyptic Giant Portraits With Dark Humour and Heavy Texture Turning Misfits Into Fragile Gods

Laust Højgaard is a Danish painter (born 1989) whose large acrylic works depict “grotesque and quirky” giant figures—misfits, outsiders and fragile titans—set in a surreal, almost post‑apocalyptic universe.

Now based in Berlin, he works on several canvases at once, building heavily textured, distorted bodies with exaggerated features, rich colour and a mix of rough and clean passages, balancing darkness and humour in each piece. After years away from art and a burnout in commercial work, he returned to painting a few years ago via an anonymous Instagram account; today he shows internationally (Thinkspace, Galerie Droste, NBB Gallery’s “Plutonium Pompeii”) with a style inspired by mythology, cyberpunk, and “fragile giants” affected by their strange, radiated surroundings.

More: Instagram