ICELAND & ART

I have just returned home from a fantastic adventure in Iceland.  We drove all over the island, camping… with a few days to enjoy urban comforts in trendy Reykjavik at the end.

The expansive landscapes and humbling presence of nature in everyday life are dominating and blindingly beautiful.  I love how purely their culture has evolved and to a certain extent been preserved due to geographical circumstance and isolation.

We stumbled upon a cute art gallery up north in the city of Arkueyri, with an exhibition called Anamnesis by Icelandic artist, Stefan Boulter.  

His paintings felt very honest and in the moment.But what I loved more were his side notes which seemed more of a rant about what art should be.

But a good rant.

“The artist and the artwork can never be detached from each other.  Art is always based on a particular view of life and the artist’s strives towards revealing that personal perspective.  When moved by art the viewer senses the collective consciousness.  For some time now people have been lead to believe that the artist must present a new perspective or that art must somehow mirror society.  This insistence has turned into a mantra which is repeated ad nauseam like it was law.  Art cannot be dictated in this manner and it is neither desirable nor possible to define it so narrowly.  Simple and straightforward things are not necessarily foolish.  Quite the contrary, they are deep and wise.  We should be able to enjoy works of art directly without an interpreter.  Knowing why and how an artwork was made can be very interesting and helpful, but it can never act as a substitute for it.”

In this respect, part of what I love to experience as a traveller is the art that has risen from a place.

Also, in Reykjavik we visited the house and gallery of Icelandic sculptor Einar Jonsson.  I was really inspired by the epic themes within his work and the simple beauty of line, form and gesture.