Jón Axel Björnsson’s paintings hover on the colourful boundaries between forms that present us with objects and those that capture a state of mind. They possess definitive idiosyncrasies such as large monochrome blocks of colour, which break up the picture plane and float on its surface. Humanlike forms rear their heads in places, often exiting or entering the picture near the edge of the frame. The visual world contained within the paintings is in complete harmony – swathes of colour, figures and objects create an explicit tension within the image and indicate that they contain a story.
Jón Axel Björnsson was born in 1956 in Reykjavík. He studied at The Icelandic College of Art and Crafts in 1975–1979. Jón Axel is a working artist, having shown his work in numerous exhibitions both in Iceland and abroad. Jón Axel taught art at The Icelandic College of Art and Crafts and at The Icelandic Art Academy in 1985–1999, as well as in The Reykjavík School of Visual Arts in 1995–2000. He also worked as a set designer at many Icelandic theatre companies, Borgarleikhúsið, Þjóðleikhúsið and Leikfélag Akureyrar, from 2002–2006. Jón Axel has also worked on various architectural projects.