UNDIRLJÓMI

Á reiki á milli innri skynjunar og óróleika úti fyrir, sveiflast bil til og frá. Ytri aðstæður móta vitund okkar og öfugt; í tilfinningalegu einrúmi myndast andóf gegn snertingu við ytra byrðið og minnsti breytileiki í því veldur spennu sem aftur leitar inn á við. Ytra byrðið, greypt í hljómfall hins daglega, er litríkt af tjáningu.

Nánd við samvirk tengsl á milli líkama okkar, huga og umhverfis er beisluð í listsköpun Carissu Baktay, Claire Paugam, Claudiu Hausfeld, Guðrúnar Hrannar Ragnarsdóttur, Iðu Brár Ingadóttur, Hye Joung Park og Þórdísar Erlu Zoëga á sýningunni UNDIRLJÓMI. Upptökin er ósæ nálægð við hversdagsleg yfirborð og flæðandi glýpt á milli þeirra.

Jafndægrin leika með líkamsklukku okkar og sjónarhorn þrengjast og víkka á víxl í takt við hreyfingu sólar. Þegar hún skimar lágt leitar hugurinn inn á við, eftir nánd og einveru. Þegar hún rís og nær nyrstu stöðu um sumarsólstöður, örvast hughrif og tilfinning um viðbótartíma sem opnar margstrenda sýn á ígrundun og athafnir. Svo hverfur hún á ný og taktbilið minnkar; athyglin færist inn á við. Við nemum hljóðbylgjur innra byrðisins og leyfum þeim að renna saman við hljómfall hins daglega.

Í verkum Claire Paugam, Carissu Baktay og Þórdísar Erlu Zoëga renna örheimur og alheimur í eitt, málmgrýti mætir holdi, líkami steindum, og útlínur þess sem er í fersku minni og þess sem er hverfandi dofna. Í hinu gljúpa efni sem eftir verður fæðast nýjar frásagnir.

Claudia Hausfeld, Guðrún Hrönn Ragnarsdóttir, Iða Brá Ingadóttir og Hye Joung Park fara með okkur í aðra átt, inn á milli hlutheims og hugheims þar sem er hverfandi sjónarrönd. Hugurinn fjarlægist líkamann og gleymir sér í víðáttunni.

Carissa Baktay sker út í landslagið til að endurmóta jaðra þess í samræmi við innsæi sitt. Speglar verða að stöðuvötnum sem endurvarpa ljósbrigðum og leysa upp landamæri í hugarþelinu. Í skapandi ferli hennar, frá rennandi eða fallandi vatni úti við til nándar baðherbergisins, skipa líkamar og umhverfi þeirra miðlægan sess. Með hreinsun og umhirðu endurheimtir hún virði háranna sem hún notar í sumum verkum sínum, og lætur þau smjúga inn í dýrmæt ker, eða ljóma í risastórri fléttu.

Aðgerðir Þórdísar Erlu Zoëga afhjúpa að sama skapi þá djúpu athygli sem hún veitir rannsókn sinni á samspili ljóss og glers. Hún leiðir okkur inn í heim dáleiðandi, brothættra og þokukenndra endurvarpana þar sem sjónhverfingin sem af hlýst tvístrar og feykir burt á víxl, líkt og dögun víki fyrir sólargeislun í birtingu.

Claire Paugam staðsetur annað verk sitt í dyragætt á milli sýningarýma. Risastór tunga býður okkur inn í innvortis rými listamannsins; hinumegin er grjót í veginum. Ljósmyndir Claire leiða okkur að jöðrum undirmeðvitundar hennar, þar sem endurminningar um horfinn tíma eru ljóslifandi. Í húmi neðst í minninu virðist sem umhverfið leysist upp um leið og það umlykur okkur.

Í gjörningi Iðu Brár Ingadóttur myndast flæðandi tjáskipti á milli líkama hennar og náttúrumynda. Fossinn þýðir hljóðlátar samræður og látæði valdeflingar. Línulegt tímaskyn hverfur og eftir verður órætt rými fyrir kvika sambúð manns og náttúru. Áhorfandanum býðst að taka þátt, hvílast og sækja sér endurnæringu í orkunni.

Verk Hye Joung Park er sömuleiðis hvílandi. Myndir í pappír og leir segja sögu skeljar sem gleymdi sér á ljósri strönd. Í ferli Hye kristallast samsvörun milli líkama og huga í kóreógrafískri hreyfingu. Verk hennar eru eins og annáll um tímaleysi efna; örþunnt og brothætt eðli þeirra eiga samhljóm í húsi Claudiu Hausfeld. Þar horfast á mynd og hlutur, samháð og velviljuð. Þau standa vörð hvort um annað, í huldu skjóli sýningarýmisins sem og í náttúrunni. Það sem er inni og það sem er úti rennur saman.

Aðra óvænta samsetningu er að finna í endurbólstruðum stólum Guðrúnar Hrannar Ragnarsdóttur. Hið nýja áklæði er gert úr fundnum skeljabrotum og gifsi. Það sem áður var mjúkt, gert til hæginda og bauð til hvíldar, miðlar nú eingögnu hugmyndinni um hvíld í formi listhlutarins.

Í infraversi verka á sýningunni er litróf hugans kannað; grafist fyrir um tengslin á milli lyndis og líkamleika í samhengi margþættrar umhverfisvitundar, og leitast við að veita athygli nýjum sögum og sjónarhornum. Í verkum sýnenda eru ýmis ljósbrot upplifana grandskoðuð; farið um rými þeirra og skjól; og okkur boðið að hvíla um stund í undirljómanum.

Bækling sýningarinnar má skoða HÉR.

Grafísk hönnun eftir Huga Ólafsson.
Ljósahönnun eftir Rósu Dögg Þorsteinsdóttur.

 

Um sýningarstjórana

 

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Elise Bergonzi

Elise Bergonzi (1997) is a French visual artist and curator. Her work focuses on shapes, structures and objects that intertwine social, political and environmental aspects of our daily lives. Since 2021, she holds a BFA and an MFA from the Nantes School of Fine Arts (FR). Since 2022, she lives and works in Reykjavík (IS), completing an MFA in Curatorial Practices at the Iceland University of the Arts (IS). She exhibited her work several times in France and Germany and curated a number of exhibitions. Questioning the notion of inhabiting, Elise Bergonzi’s current project focuses on interconnections between the everyday life of our habitats and watery structures. She explores the potentialities of valorizing neglected structures by participating in a more fluid social ecology in and out of our artistic environments.

 

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Daria Testoedova

Daria Testoedova (1999) is a Buryat-Mongolian curator and art historian. Her initial interest was in the anthropological and ethnographic view of the fine arts of her indigenous Siberian roots. She received her BA from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, where she studied Bachelor of Arts and Culture, which has a deep dive into philosophy, sociology, and economics of the Art World. Now she is working on her Master’s degree in Curatorial Practice at the Iceland University of Arts, where she is combining her theoretical expertise and practical knowledge. Through her world, Daria explores topics like the democratization of art, public art, and the representation of marginalized voices. 

 

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Hannah Zander

Hannah Zander (1989, United States) holds a BFA in Studios Arts with an emphasis in Ceramics/Sculpture & Art History and an MFA in Arts Administration from Southern Utah University. She lives and works in Reykjavik while pursuing an MA in Curatorial Practice at the Iceland University of the Arts. Hannah has worked for and collaborated with art museums, public art committees, and art centers in the United States and Iceland. Topics she incorporates within her curatorial projects include: recontextualizion of collected works, connective experiences, alternative perceptions, public art & participation, and arts advocacy.

 

Um listamennina

 

Carissa Baktay

Carissa Baktay is a multi-media sculptor, born 1986. As an experienced glass maker she has earned degrees from Alberta University of the Arts, attended the Rhode Island School of Design with scholarship, and received her Masters’ from Universidad Nova de Lisboa. Using experimental technologies and mediums combined with time honored glass making methods, she has been invited to work in studios in Bulgaria, Norway, Finland and Portugal. Recently her work has been recognized with multiple grants from The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The Canada Council for the Arts, SÍM, KÍM, and the Icelandic Design Fund. 

Carissa Baktay's process based practice is deeply connected to material and memory and by collecting and reimagining materials, she transforms their presence in space and presents a new poetic material understanding that shares the borders between art, craft and design. Ironic and playful, these mixed material sculptures come to life through intuitive process and intimate performative acts.

 

Claudia Hausfeld

Claudia Hausfeld (b.1980 in Berlin, GDR) studied photography at the Zürich University of the Arts and visual art at the Iceland University of the Arts. She is primarily concerned with photography and its relationship to reality and space. In her practice, she focuses on analog aspects of the medium and on experimentation with material and surface, resulting in photographic works that border on the sculptural. 

In addition to her artist practice, Claudia shares the management of the photography lab of the Iceland Art Academy where she teaches courses in the darkroom, amongst other things. She lives and works in Reykjavík.

 

Iða Brá Ingadóttir

Iða Brá Ingasdótttir is a multi-disciplinary artist from Iceland, whose creative practice spans a wide range of mediums including: writing, illustration, installations, video, photography and art performance. With a deep engagement in the Icelandic circus scene over the years, she has also lent her talents to costume design and scenography projects. She has a degree in holistic health and has worked within the field of healing arts for a number of years which has influenced her creative practice on many levels.  Iða Brá applies a kaleidoscopic approach, always changing depending on the angle with which you look, with a signature organic, magical, and feminine connection to the deep mythos of Nordic nature. Playful and mysterious, there is still an equal amount of sharp clarity that pierces through veils of illusion and the noise of superficial society.

 

Hye Joung Park

Hye Joung Park lives and works in Iceland. 

Originally from South Korea Hye first came to Iceland as an cultural exchange student in 1997 aged 19. Her love for Iceland and art shaped her adulthood and Hye graduated with a BA from IUA (Iceland University of the Arts) in 2005 and MFA from Slade school of Art at UCL (University College London) in 2009. Hye lived and worked in Korea until 2017 participating in residencies and group shows and also having solo shows. Hye finished a diploma in Ceramics from Reykjavik School of Visual Art in 2019 and a diploma in Art Education in 2021 since she came back to Iceland in 2017. 

Her works are collected by Dungal Art Fund and shown at Ásmundarsal, Gallery Suðsuðvestur and other artists-run galleries in Iceland. Along with her art practice, Hye is a lecturer at the Arts Education Department in the IUA and teaches art for children. 

 

Claire Paugam

Claire Paugam is a multidisciplinary French artist (b.1991), who lives and works in Reykjavik and recipient of the Motivational Award 2020 delivered by the Icelandic Art Prize. After graduating from the Master of Fine Arts program of the Iceland University of the Arts in 2016, Claire has exhibited in Iceland and abroad, such as the Young Art Biennale in Moscow (2016), The Icelandic Photography Festival at Gerðarsafn Art Museum (2018) and has had several solo exhibitions such as Attempting the Embrace n°31 at the Reykjavik Art Museum (2021) or Essentially Untitled at Ásmundarsalur art space (2022).

The core of her artistic practice is to raise questions about the matter by confronting a sensitive experience with common systems of rules and representation. Shapelessness, disorder, entropy and the feeling of letting go are major themes she explores. Each project comes with its own materiality and structure, which allows her practice to embrace a vast range of materials. The artist uses her intuition as a tool of investigation.

 

Guðrún Hrönn Ragnarsdóttir

Guðrún Hrönn Ragnarsdóttir lives and works in Finland. She graduated from the College of Fine Arts of Iceland's School of Fine Arts and Crafts and later studied in the Netherlands at the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht. In the winter of 2006 to 2007, she studied for a teaching license at the Iceland Academy of the Arts. Since she finished her formal art studies, she has exhibited regularly all over the world, and her works are owned by public art museums and private museums here at home and abroad.

Recently, Guðrún Hränn has worked with installations consisting of photographs of objects from our immediate environment. While traveling, she uses the camera to document everyday things that for some reason catch her attention. It can be because of nostalgia, color, shape or because they seem strange, different and even comical. Although the things documented are recognizable from our own environment, they are presented in a different way than usual and therefore give reason for speculation and closer examination. The works reflect the intimacy of the moment and the place, while they refer in their own way to another time and space.

 

Þórdís Erla Zoëga

Þórdís Erla Zoëga (1988, Iceland) graduated from Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 2012. Þórdís’s practice is driven by material research as well as investigation of digital intimacy, post-humanism, science fiction and connection. She works in multiple mediums including installations, sculpture, paintings and video. Her installations evoke the interrelationship between human and its surroundings. 

Playing with the properties of inorganic materials and her use of dichroic film, Zoëga has studied the digital aesthetics of our everyday life, dissected and displayed so as to reveal the interaction and the way we connect to each other in our modern world. 

Zoëga has exhibited her work in Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Basel, the Czech Republic, and further worldwide. In Iceland, she has exhibited at the Reykjavík Art Museum, The National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavík Arts Festival, LÁ Art Museum, Akureyri Art Museum and Gerðarsafn Kópavogur Art Museum. She is currently Seltjarnarnes town’s honorary artist of the year. She is represented by BERG Contemporary, a leading Icelandic gallery.

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