Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson has lived most of her life in Cleveland, Ohio, where she works at her art. In spite of having lived away from her motherland so long, Hildur’s roots in Iceland are firm and she spends a part of each year here. She travels around the country, takes photographs that serve as inspiration for new work when she returns to the studio. On a Sea of Tranquillity presents new and older works where she intertwines the methods of weaving and painting, as well as featuring embroidery, ink drawings and watercolours.
For years, Hildur has created series based on brain scans and heavenly bodies, as well as working from the Icelandic landscape, but the hand-dyed silk threads combine in a vibrant surface that transports the viewers from their everyday surroundings. In this way, she captures the vast and the serene, in an abstract manner, employing the techniques of the craft tradition – weaving each layer harmoniously to build the picture.
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson (b. 1963) graduated with a BFA from Kent State University in 1991 and an MFA from the same institution in 1995. She studied art at the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1985-88 and also studied architecture at Kent State in 1983-85. Hildur was born in Reykjavík but has lived in Cleveland for about forty years. Her work has been widely exhibited, for example at TANG Museum, Tibor de Nagy Gallery and at the Armory Show in New York, Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, William Busta Gallery in Cleveland, as well as the Reykjavík Art Museum and the National Gallery of Iceland. Hildur’s works can be found in various museum collections, public institutions and private collections. In 2008, she was awarded the distinguished Cleveland Arts Prize at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, and in 2015, she received recognition from The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation.