22. Twenty second resident, for two months, from the 9th of September until the 9th of November 2015: Guðný Kristmanns
Guðný Þórunn Kristmannsdóttir, born in 1965, is Icelandic.
But contrary to all « our » Icelandic residents until now, she does NOT come from Reykjavik, but Akureyri...
She completed preliminary art studies at the Comprehensive College in Breiðholt in 1988
and went from there to study at the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts from the year 1988 to 1991,
where she graduated from the department of painting. Soon after she moved to Akureyri and has been living and working there ever since.
Guðný has both had private exhibitions and participated in various group exhibitions, mainly in Akureyri,
but more recently, in NewYork (2012), and Lille (France).
The group exhibition, Intimenta,
a collective thinking about and around the Intimate in artistic creation in the face of the most prevailing need/fascination for Monumentalism ,
has been launched by Paul-Armand Gette, started in Villeneuve d'Ascq (Galerie Une poussière dans l'oeil), and moved to Marseille (Galerie Porte avion), in November 2015.
Guðný has mainly worked with oil on large canvas but also on pencil drawings and mixed media on paper.
Her solo exhibition (2011), an important one, in Reykjanes Art Museum, The Carnal Imperative ,
were she exhibited both paintings and drawings, gives a good idea of her work at this moment of her life. .
She was Akureyri City-artist in 2009-10.
Guðny wrote to us in her application : "I find it interesting to look at the delicate creative process and the pleasure in the creation itself.
This is often a long path of experimentation, before the mind finds an idea and captures it. It is an intimate dance between mind and body.
There is physical enjoyment in painting and drawing, along with the wrestling that goes on in the mind."
The titles of two series she had been working at that timet : Strap-on butterflies and
Happy horny monsters give for sure some idea about the path she is following these days…
Guðný used her stay at HÖFN, (as she wrote to us before her arrival at HÖFN),
"to dive into a world full of erotic rabbits and strap-on butterflies",
making small drawings on paper (using pencils, water-coulours and crayons), reading,
meeting new people and artists, walking about in a strange new town, new landscapes, smelling southern nature under a different light,
surrounded with new colours in order to develop and fertilize her ideas... and this is more or less what she did and experience!
Guðny told us, in April 2016, that she was preparing a fairly important exhibition in Iceland...
She let us hope that we could may be recieve from her (in a month or so) her own "offering" to HÖFN...
Við bíðum spennt!! (We look forward to discover what it will be!!... Butteflies? Rabbits?? Anything else??!!)
The 17th of June 2016 Guðný finally sent us those 2 pictures of her work:
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21. Twenty first resident, for a month, from the 15th of May until the 15th of July 2015: Vera Sölvadóttir.
Vera Sölvadóttir, born in 1981, is Icelandic.
She graduated from the Directing and Writing Department of the Sorbonne University I in Paris with two Masters degrees in 2006.
Since then, Vera has worked on various documentaries, short and feature films, mostly in France and Iceland...
Vera founded in 2010, and makes more and more efficient year after year the Production Company Wonderfilms .
She is currently working as a director and a producer as well as hosting the cultural TV show Djöflaeyan (Devil's Island)
at RÚV (Icelandic State Television).
FILMOGRAPHY
2014 - « In Search of Livingstone », short. Director and writer. Production : Duo Productions. Iceland.
2014 - «Gone», short/physical cinema. Director and writer. Production : Wonderfilms/HP Productions. Iceland.
2012 - «Birds»,short. Director and writer. Wonderfilms. Iceland.
2011 - « Hammer City », TV pilot . Director. Production : Icelandic Film School
2010 - « Heart to Heart »,short. Director and writer. Production : Wonderfilms. Iceland.
2009 - « Burkina Faso 8.600 Km », documentary. Co-director. Production : Þetta Líf. West Africa/ Iceland.
2009 - « Freyugata », TV pilot . Director. Production : Icelandic Film School. Iceland
2007 - « Monsieur Hyde », short. Director and writer. Production : La Pieza films. France
2005 - « The last Song », documentary. Director and writer. Production : La Pieza films. Iceland/France.
Among those films , « Monsieur Hyde » was selected in various festivals:
(Iceland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, India, Bulgaria, Lithuania, France, Austria, Armenia)...,
as well as « Gone » (Finland, Sweden) and « In Search of Livingstone » (France, Iceland, Sweden, Finland)
We should for certain add that Vera composes et sings :
4 albums : BB&Blake : Remix album (2013), Audible : Les oiseaux et Robert ,
Last Boy : Time to let go (2010), BB&Blake, White Lord Jesus : Improve Myself (2009),
that, between 2006 and 2013, she participated in and/or initiated several exhibitions :
video installations, photographies, postcards, Installation/performances in Reykjavík, New York, Paris
... and was member or head of juries in the cinema field in Iceland.
She came to HÖFN with her daughter Saga (10 months- the youngest resident ever at HÖFN!),
for a rather long time, (2 months),
looking for (craving?) LIGHT and SUN ( no reason to deny it!)...
and under HÖFN sun, to carry on her work and writing on a film project: « The Party »
which already has been granted for writing development from the Icelandic Film Center.
Few words about this film project by Vera Sölvadóttir herself :
«The film is about what drives us to do what we do, how we think we have time to organize our dreams,
when all the time we are on the hedge of chaos.
We think we occasionally see the light,
and it is often in the throes of enlightenment that we lose what is dearest for us.
The story takes place in the post Icelandic economic boom.
Not only is the story topical but it is also a unique part of Icelandic culture.
It is ironically appropriate to a nation waking up from dreams of extended prosperity.»
As Vera was staying at HÖFN, our association organised a special evening,
in partnership with the Art School of Aix en Provence, dedicated to some young Icelandic film makers and their short films.
SEE: IN VERA'S BAGGAGE, (Icelandic short-films screening), the 17th of June 2015
Monday, the 18th of January 2016: Vera just sent us a text... neither a video, nor a photo...NO... a single text.
It is in Icelandic. Dominique Poulain translated it in English. (Tried to do so, at least; English is NOT her native language, as you probably noticed on this web site!)
HERE the text in Icelandic: Áróra: files/arora.pdf
HERE the text translated in English: Aurora: files/translationtextVera1.pdf
Aurora and Armando (photo: Dominique Poulain)
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20. Twentieth resident, for a month, from the 5th of March until the 2nd of April 2015: Ragnar Helgi Ólafsson.
Ragnar Helgi Ólafsson, born in 1971, is Icelandic.
He studied philosophy at the University of Iceland, then filmmaking, and directed several short films,
and later fine arts at the Ecole Supérieure d’art d’Aix en Provence.
Ragnar Helgi now produces mostly text-based works and digital installations, dealing with the elementary banalities of the human condition:
the connections between oneself and others, poetry, time and memory.
His latest work is titled: Tragedy of our limitless imagination and our limited lives.
Ragnar Helgi runs the publishing house Tunglið forlag (The moon Edition),
which publishes between 8 and 12 works of fiction and poetry each year,
as well as being a part of 1005-collective which publishes the 1005-annual in May of each year.
In 2013, Ragnar Helgi published his first novel, Bréf frà Bútan (A Letter from Bhutan).
Ragnar Helgi has recently taken part in exhibitions in Vienna, New York, Miami, Helsinki,
The Museum of Contemporary Art/b and The National Gallery of Iceland in Reykjavik, Amsterdam,
Denmark and La Villette Numerique in Paris.
Along with his artistic practice, Ragnar Helgi teaches part-time at the Iceland Academy of the Arts, plays in various bands as well as working in graphic design.
During his stay at Höfn he has been mostly working on two projects :
#1. A visual art installation, being prepared for a show in Reykjavik in April, as part of the Sequences-biennale,
(probably involving sound and some kind of code)...
#2. The second project involved the writing of a manuscript for a little book of small proses (not poems, not stories but between the two).
This had been his basic plan for the stay in Höfn but of course he reserved the right to change his mind, depending on how things developed.
Ragnar has used as well his staying in Marseille to meet people, explore cultural and /or art places there,
in order to see whether it could open a possibility of doing an exchange of art-shows between Marseille and Reykjavík.
As he was still at HÖFN, Ragnar already knew what he would leave as HIS "offering". He explains here, in Icelandic how, and why...
"Inngangur að þýðingu draums": files/Inngdraums.pdf
... and here is the translation, by Dominique Poulain (Mars-April 2015)
"Introduction à la traduction d'un rêve": files/intaurevederagnar.pdf
Here is Ragnar's dream, a dream he had in 2011, that he wrote down then, just waking up, and which he dedicates to-day to HÖFN and... Einar Örn Benediktsson... (in Icelandic)
"Örstutt tilraun um skrift, draum og vöku": files/Draumurragnars.pdf
... and here the translation by Dominique Poulain (Mars-April 2015)
"Un très court essai entre écriture, rêve et veille": files/tradreveragnar.pdf
As an oddity, and a proof it ALL happened, the article Einar Örn Benediktsson wrote about Dominique Poulain in 1990something...
