Painting as Nature

October 24. - January 18. 2015

Painting as nature

“In my art, I deal with the basic elements of nature, the passage of energy and the ways in which it manifests itself. Research and experimentation with the use of materials plays an important role in my creative process.” (Guðrún Einarsdóttir)

Born in Iceland 1957 Einarsdóttir trained at the Icelandic Academy of Arts at the Department of Painting and that of Mixed Media in the 1980s. She has later added chemistry courses to her line of experience.

Guðrún Einarsdóttir’s works are based on experiments with oils, binders and solvents. She produces her works on nature’s terms rather than the landscape tradition’s and her approach is more akin to that of a scientist than that of an artist. In so doing, she brings the “subterranean life” of her paintings to the surface and she goes on to interfere with the creative process to a certain extent, turn the biological process to her advantage, and use the results to suggest further development of the works. Where she intervenes to make adjustments to her material or colours, it is to enhance the visibility of this “life” inside her paintings, not to draw attention to her own input.

Thus she becomes a kind of facilitator, creating conditions for what could be termed a “biological process” within her art, a process in which biological substances come to live a life of their own within a work of art, out of control of the artist.The long drying process of the materials brings to light the „hidden“ landscapes contained within them.
Here Gudrún’s extensive knowledge of the properties of oil paints stands her in good stead, as well as her years of experimentation with materials and chemicals. The success of this “biological process” is dependent on the exact proportions of oil, binders and fillers that she uses at any given time, all of which affects the thickness and texture of the coloured mass that she deploys.

Over the last two decades Einarsdóttir has participated in a number of group exhibitions and held one-man exhibitions in Iceland as well as abroad. She is well represented in public collections in Iceland as well as in private collections in Iceland and abroad.