Jóhanna Kristbjörg Sigurðardóttir often deals with complex installations where she combines different media, such as traditional oil paintings, wooden sculptures, videos, texts and performances. Based on the formal language that she uses, the works can be seen as an abstract manifestation of poetic expression. A distinctive playfulness characterises her works, as they form a conversation with the present and art history alike. Jóhanna’s exhibition in the main gallery of Hafnarborg contains installations, which consist of paintings, sculptures and videos. The challenging space of the gallery has been taken over by flowing forms and colours. Pictographs, that we have not yet fully learnt to read, appear in paintings, in sculptures and in three-dimensional forms which frame the installations. Here, works from previous installations meet new pieces and form a whole, although the individual parts remain discernible.
Jóhanna Kristbjörg Sigurðardóttir was born in 1982. She works in both Reykjavík and Antwerp, Belgium. She completed an M.A. degree from the fine art department of KASK, Ghent, in 2013 and two years of postgraduate studies at HISK, the Higher Institute for Fine Arts, Ghent, in 2014–2015. Before that, she graduated with a B.A. degree from the visual art department of the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2008. Jóhanna is one of the artists in the Trampoline Gallery in Antwerp and one of the founders of ABC Klubhuis, a new, artist-run gallery, also in Antwerp. Jóhanna´s work has been widely exhibited: for instance in S.M.A.K., Ghent; the Moscow Biennale 2015; Andersen´s Contemporary, Copenhagen; Ornis A. Gallery, Amsterdam, and Kunsthalle São Paulo, Brazil.