Alex Colard

Gallery Hera – Sigurdur Olafsson – March 19 to April 4th 2022 – Hornsgatan 36, Sweden – Open: Wed-Thurs 11-18, Fri-Sat 11-16, Sun 12-16

ABOUT the artist
Sigurdur Olafsson is a visual artist living and working in Iceland.

He is reluctant to define his work or limit it within a particular category. Olafsson applies paint to his big canvases with large custom-made squeegees, trowels, spatulas, and other unconventional tools. Through an accumulation of spontaneous, reactive gestures, he composes multifaceted works with intriguing colour combinations and spiritual quality that explore the boundary between faith and uncertainty.

His passion is to use the medium of painting to explore new patterns and forms that lead to novel creative discoveries. His paintings pose a series of questions rather than provide clear statements or narratives. Olafsson is interested in the transcendent potential of painting and employs the medium to explore the physical properties of paint and innovative possibilities in its use. In some ways, his work can be seen as conceptual rather than paintings in the traditional sense.

His working technique is a paradox; it combines artistry with randomness; discipline with a loose and playful approach. Characterized by austere compositions built on layers of hidden complexity, Olafsson’s paintings elegantly negotiate the boundary between the concrete and the metaphysical.

Olafsson is a graduate of The Icelandic College of Art and Crafts. His work has been exhibited in Iceland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. His work is held in public and private collections in Iceland and private collections in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
https://www.sigurdurolafsson.com/

Artist s statement
In a world that abounds with technology and machine-made perfection, a painting provides a welcome alternative; a way to connect with something natural and intimate. It takes us back to the roots of human creativity and our most basic form of self-expression.

I love old handmade things that have a history and a soul. Abandoned farmhouses, ghost towns, and other forsaken human relics fascinate me. I like the feelings they evoke and the poignant stories they tell. Weathered layers of peeling paint, rusted metal, and crumbling concrete have a strange visual quality that I find interesting.

I try to induce similar feelings in the viewer’s mind with my art. I am exploring something that I can only describe as the boundary between faith and uncertainty. I think in that elusive and mysterious area, I will find the secrets of creativity itself or at least continued inspiration on my artistic journey.

What do I want to say with my art?

Treasure your humanity and uniqueness. Meaning can have many layers, and it is a worthwhile effort to uncover a few of them. Celebrate the eccentric and the mundane, the hidden as well as the obvious. Beauty can be found in the most unlikely of places.

ABOUT the exhibition
We welcome Icelandic Sigurdur Olafsson, a new artist at Galleri Hera, who is now showing his first solo exhibition in Stockholm.
In recent years, he has focused on painting and the collection “Epiphany series” is a series of paintings he worked on during 2021-to 2022. Icelandic nature can be varied. Magnificent, boundless, dramatic, a raw strength and an infinite beauty. There is everything to pick up for an artist like Sigurdur Olafsson who interprets his landscape in the abstract paintings “Epiphany series”.

ABOUT the gallery
Gallery Hera was established in 1990
The gallery has two floors with separate exhibitions on the entrance level, as well as a showroom upstairs, with a large selection of the gallery’s artists.

Gallery Hera is a member of the Swedish Gallery Association
https://gallerihera.se/

Open:
Wed-Thurs 11-18
Fri-Sat 11-16
Sun 12-16

Hornsgatan 36
118 20 Stockholm

Tel 070 352 04 41 / +46 70 352 04 41

info@gallerihera.se

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