About Dina
Dina Rebekka Norlund (1995–2023) was a Norwegian artist and creator of graphic stories.
By the age of twenty-five, she stood in the midst of a career that had already spanned a decade. It had taken her from early success with exhibitions and sales, through art studies abroad, employment at a well-known design studio, the founding of her own publishing company, five published books, countless artworks and illustrations, and more than 170,000 followers on YouTube.
All of this lay behind her when she was told she might die young.
She lost her fight two and a half years later, just under a month before her twenty-eighth birthday.
Her final wish was that all her art should be gathered into a single book.
This book is the fulfilment of that wish.
More about Dina
Dina was born in Oslo, Norway. From an early age she felt drawn to the idea of an animated, living nature. Her spiritual connection to animals – especially wolves – grew out of a childhood spent almost as a “wild child”, surrounded by deep forests, mysterious creatures, and the family’s enormous wolfhound. All of this she carried with her into her life as an artist.
Drawing came naturally to Dina. She made her first comic at the age of six. At fourteen she was admitted to the art programme at the prestigious Elvebakken Upper Secondary School in Oslo, something that accelerated her young artistic career. She began receiving paid commissions, producing designs, posters and several short comics.
In 2015, at the age of twenty, she enrolled at the Feng Zhu School of Design in Singapore, an intense one-year programme. After twelve months of almost no rest or sleep she graduated and began a new chapter in Newcastle, England, where she had been offered a position as a character designer and concept artist at a well-known design studio.
At the same time she launched her own YouTube channel, where she produced art videos offering inspiration and instruction to other artists. It quickly became a success, eventually reaching almost 200,000 followers. She also established a Patreon community where members supported her work and followed her artistic process.
In 2017 she founded her own publishing company, Hushbird, and released the graphic novel Fern and the Moon Rabbit. It was a success. Dina left her position at Atomhawk and began working independently.
Over the next few years her publishing company released several books: Greylegs (2018), Sprout (2019), Mermay (2019) and The Snow Cat Prince(2020).
At the same time she carried out freelance work for a number of commercial clients.
In 2020 Dina moved back to Norway and began collaborating with the publisher Egmont. They translated and released The Snow Cat Prince in Norwegian. The book became very popular, received several awards, and was later published in Sweden, Denmark, Poland, France and the United States. Dina and Egmont began planning further books based on her stories.
In the autumn of 2020 she fell seriously ill. But Dina was not a person easily stopped. She produced more art than ever before: the short comics Wild and Lonely, countless design assignments, teaching at art schools, and a steady stream of personal artworks. She also began work on two ambitious graphic novel projects, Nettle & the HushHush and TamTam. In many ways it seemed as if she transformed her struggle for life directly into her work..
In 2022 Dina focused mainly on getting well. She almost completely stopped taking commissions and moved into a tiny house outside the city, with a lush garden — almost a miniature echo of the deep forests of her childhood. There she painted simply for her own pleasure. She often said how wonderful it was to be alone with her work and free from deadlines.
But Dina’s own time was sadly running out.
Her final painting, Freedom, was begun in December 2022. It is a small work in watercolour and gouache, depicting a dragon the size of a butterfly resting among the petals of a flower of the same colour as itself.
Dina Norlund left this world in February 2023.
