IN MEMORIAM
Verkin á sýningunni voru unnin með eggtemperu á pappír í París 2002-2003
en ég var með vinnuaðstöðu þar í 1 og 1/2 ár í vinnustofum Cité Internationale des Arts og svo heppin að fá starfslaun í eitt
ár. Fyrsta sýningin með þessu konsepti var í Listasafni ASÍ árið
2001 í öllu húsinu svo hugmyndin er búin að loða lengi við mig
.
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Due
to her unfashionably strong artistic convictions, painter Margrét
Jónsdóttir has been at odds with prevailing trends in Icelandic art for
most of her creative life. In expressing those convictions she has
frequently gone to the edge of the inexpressible, heedless of her
reputation or the expectations of her public, imbued only with fearless
integrity
The
works on paper that she is exhibiting here in Reykjanesbær exemplify
her unusual, often wayward, way of thinking, teeming as they are with
references to existential and cultural matters.
At
first glance these works seem to be straightforward extensions of
ordinary wallpaper patterns, full of stylized versions of branches,
leaves and flowers.
They
seem to have no obvious beginning, centre or end, and are painted with
hot and strident colours that make our eyes ache. Others painted with
dark and dull colours that obliterate the outlines of the patterns or
dissolve them entirely.
We
guessed right; the patterns in these works are mostly created using
French wallpaper stencils. By using them the artist wants to remind us
of the essential difference between serious creative work, leading to
art capable of deepening our understanding of man and the world, and the
ubiquitous and soulless manufacture of visual imagery geared only to
market forces.
While
constructing her work out of the latter, the artist is actively
undermining it by transferring, as it were, the oft-repeated patterns
back to their origins in the natural world, where they are at the mercy
of natural selection and destruction, in other words, the ravages of
time. The paintings feature the steady and inexorable erosion and
rebirth of nature. The stylized patterns, nature´s substitutes, either
disintegrate from within or fall prey to outside forces of destruction.
In the end only a handful of areas remain unscathed, like memorials to
long gone beauty spots. Regret is clearly one of the ingredients of
these works.
The
featured contrasts between nature and the destructive forces at its
heart may also be seen as references to other supposedly antithetic
elements. In spite of their humble look, the French wallpaper patterns
used by the artist are clearly cultural constructs, representatives of a
particular decorative tradition. Against these cultural constructs the
artist pits elements of raw nature, perhaps the unforgiving nature of
the harsh Suðurnes peninsula where she lives. In doing so she is not
expressing a preference of one over the other, but emphasizing the
importance of a balanced world view.
Adalsteinn Ingolfsson
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