ANNA JÓELSDÓTTIR "heima? / home?" New Paintings & Installation September 8, 2006

ANNA JÓELSDÓTTIR
home? / heima? New paintings & Installation
September 8 – October 21, 2006
Opening: Friday, September 8, 5:30-8:00 p.m.

Zg Gallery, 300 W. Superior St., Chicago, IL 60610
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10-5:30
Tel.: 312.654.9900 Web: ww.ZgGallery.com

Anna Jóelsdóttir’s paintings are inspired by the dramatic landscapes and striking contrasts of her beloved homeland (Iceland) and her adopted country (USA). Born and raised in Iceland, Jóelsdóttir’s heart and aesthetic remain deeply connected to the stunning vistas of volcanoes, waterfalls, glaciers, geysers, mountains and fjords of her native land. “heima? / home?” is her new body of work investigating the cognitive, cultural and visual dislocation and dissonance she experiences trying to adjust to a different language, culture, and geography.

Jóelsdóttir’s paintings are tightly wound compositions of minutely drawn details, zipping bolts of solid color and trajectory lines rendered on a stark white ground. The results are fractured topographies of cartographic and structural forms, combined with gestures suggesting turbulence and released energy that imply both natural landscapes & urban architectural forms, where order and chaos are forced to exist on the same picture plane. “I paint hard edge structures of stripes, paths, and fragments of something larger.” The addition of ink drawings to her paintings, express “both controlled and chaotic fragments of interrupted lines, structures, signs, and symbols.” These “fragments move, search, connect, disconnect, and disguise. They distort vision, interrupt time, and echo space like our memories do.” No longer living in an expansive landscape of glaciers, hot springs, and active lava deserts, or speaking in her native language, Jóelsdóttir must constantly balance the daily dislocation and bridge the gaps of “heima / home.”

Born in Iceland, Anna Jóelsdóttir received her M.F.A. at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her B.Ed. at the University Teachers College of Iceland. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, ASI Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland, and at the Hafnarborg Institute in Iceland. This will be Jóelsdóttir’s first solo exhibition with Zg Gallery.

Also: Saturday, October 7th, 12:00 at Zg.
Artists Talk with Anna Jóelsdóttir, Molly Briggs & Martina Nehrling “Landscapes Beyond Boundaries,”

Official Website: http://www.zggallery.com/joelsdottir.htm