Wights - Jónína Guðnadóttir

Wights or supernatural beings is the subject of the artist Jónína Guðnadóttir. Her works derive from ceramics but she also creates reliefs and other wallpieces where she examines the clay or the material she uses in connection with other materials and techniques. In the exhibition she wrestles with supernatural beings and forces of nature. She looks back to her original art and makes an installation which has a strong reference to history and past. Jónína Guðnadóttir was named the artist of Hafnarfjordur Council in 2007.


Jónína Gudnadóttir
VISUAL ARTIST
BORN IN REYKJAVIK, ICELAND, 1943
E-mail lingu@islandia.is - Website www.jonina.is

EDUCATION
1960–1962 The Icelandic College of Art and Crafts, Reykjavik, Iceland
1962–1963 The Reykjavik College of Art
1963–1967 The Swedish National College of Arts and Design (Konstfack),
Stockholm, Sweden
1967–1968 Post-Graduate studies at SNCAD (Konstfack), Stockholm

STUDIO
Own studio since 1969

SEPARATE EXHIBITIONS
1968, 1975, 1977, 1984, 1986 and 1989 in galleries in Reykjavik, Iceland
1985 and 1990 in Hafnarfjördur, Iceland
1995 Municipal Gallery of Akureyri, Iceland
1996 Galleria Uusikuva, Kotka, Finland
1997 Kjarvalsstadir, The Reykjavik Municipal Gallery
1998 Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute of Culture and Fine Art
1999 Kirkjuhvoll, Akranes, Iceland
2001 The Circulation of Water, Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute
of Culture and Fine Art
2005 Waters teaming with life, Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute
of Culture and Fine Art
2005 Kirkjuhvoll, Akranes, Iceland
2005 Gallery Kunstverein, Cuxhaven, Germany
2005 Danish Cultural Centre, Flensburg, Germany
2009 Wights, Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute
of Culture and Fine Art

GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Various group exhibitions, both domestic and abroad, e.g.:
1968 Nordic House, Reykjavik
1979 The exhibition of the Association of Icelandic artists (FIM), Reykjavík
1981 Gallery Plaisiren, The Hässelby Castle, Stockholm
1982–1983 Scandinavian Modern Design, Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York;
Minnesota Museum of Art; St Paul and Renwick Gallery, Washington DC, USA
1984 Form Iceland, Finnish Museum of Applied Arts, Helsinki, Finland
1987 Scandinavian Craft Today, Yurakucho Art Forum, Tokyo and the National
Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan
1988 Scandinavian Craft Today, American Craft Museum, New York; Cleveland
Institute of Art, Cleveland, Ohio, and the Fine Art Museum of the South,
Mobile, Alabama, USA
1990 The Cultural Festival in Akranes and Reykholt, Iceland
1990 Nord Form, Malmö, Sweden
1992 Gallery Ófeigur, Reykjavik
1993 Nordic Scultpure, Ejdfjorden, Norway
1993 The exhibition of the Association of Reykjavík Sculptors, Hotel Örk,
Hveragerdi, Iceland
1993 4 + 1 A group exhibition together with four Finnish artists,
Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute of Culture and Fine Art, Iceland
1995 Ceramics in Iceland, Kjarvalsstadir, Reykjavik
1995 Altitudes, Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, USA
1996 Kirkjuhvoll, Akranes, Iceland
1997 Artists of Hafnarfjördur, Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute of Culture
and Fine Art 1997 The 25th Anniversary of The Association of Reykjavik Sculptors
1998 The Costal Line, The Association of Reykjavik Sculptors and the City of
Reykjavik
2000 Art by the Sea, the sculpture Heaven set up in Akranes
2001 The Kitchen Gallery of The Association of Reykjavik Sculptors
2005 Iceland Culture, Stockholms Auktionsverk, Stockholm, Sweden
2006 Porcelain, The Association of Reykjavik Sculptors
2008 Artists of Hafnarfjördur 2008
2008 Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute of Culture and Fine Art 1983 –
2008

COLLECTIONS
The National Gallery of Iceland; Hafnarborg, The Hafnarfjördur Institute of
Culture and Fine Art; the Council of Art and Culture of Kópavogur; the Reykjavik
Burial Grounds Institution; the Icelandic Red Cross Medical Utensils Bank; the
Cuxhaven Council of Art, Cuxhaven, Germany; the Reykjavik Art Collection; The
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Reykjavik; the Municipal Gallery of Akureyri; The
Municipal Art Collection of Akranes; The Taxation Office of South Iceland, Hella;
The Hafnarfjödur Municipal Library; GRASSI Museum für Angewandte Kunst,
Leipzig, Germany.

CURRENT MEMBERSHIP
The Union of Icelandic Visual Arts, the Association of Reykjavik Sculptors.

DISTINCTIONS
Principal teacher of ceramics at the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts when
the ceramic department was established; has received Icelandic State Grants for
Artists; has been a member of the committee of exhibitions of the Association
of Icelandic Artists as well as a member of the Board; first president of the
Society of Icelandic Ceramic Artists 1981–1984;
member of Gallery Grjót during its existence 1983–1989; head of the Icelandic
Section of the Nordic Arts Association 1986–1990; president of the Nordic Arts
Association 1990–1993; representative of the Union of Icelandic Visual Arts on
the Committee for Icelandic State Grants for Artists in 1984; Secretary of the
Board of the Reykjavik Association of Sculptors since 2000.
In 2006: Commissioned to set up three pieces of land art, called Vortex I, II and
III, after having won the first prize in a competition among selected artists for
land art in the area around the Kárahnjúkar hydroelectric power station in the
highlands of Eastern Iceland. Estimated to be finished in 2009.
In 2007: Honorary Artist in Residence in Hafnarfjördur.

Text from the catalogue by Pétrún Pétursdóttir:
To watch as an artist prepares for an exhibition is like setting off on a long journey. When the artist in question in Jónína Guðnadóttir one can be sure of the guide: The journey will be well-planned, entertaining and informative but also full of unexpected adventures. The journey, of course, began long ago and the artist’s work and research has neither a beginning nor an end, and her facility with the materials and their presentation is the result of years, even decades, of hard work. The promise of the journey lies in seeing all the threads come together: The artist’s endless experiments with forms and materials as the exhibition finally takes shape. Each exhibition is both an end and a new beginning – a new chapter in the artist’s life-long journey.
Jónína Guðnadóttir has been an active participant in the radical renewal of Icelandic art in the past few decades. She returned home from her studies abroad in the late 1960s as new ideas and trends were taking over in Icelandic art and the market for art was gradually opening to admit a new generation of artists. Jónína worked with the SÚM group of young artists that was formed in 1965 and had nearly twenty members when it was most active. SÚM was a forum for artists but also involved writers and musicians, most of whom were inspired by the new avant-garde that was emerging in Europe and the United States, not least by the Fluxus movement which was well represented in Iceland by Dieter Roth and Magnús Pálsson.
Jónína decided early on to dedicate herself to art. She was only seventeen when she began studying at the Icelandic College of Art and Crafts and she later continued her studies at the Konstfack Academy in Stockholm (The Swedish National College of Arts and Design) where she was enrolled for five years and where she also taught following her graduation. Jónína focused on ceramic arts and this medium formed the basis of her art early on and continues to be her primary material even though she has expanded her work in other directions.
When she returned from Sweden she set about working on her own and also took on the work of establishing a department of ceramic arts at her old school – becoming its first department head – that was to revitalise work in the medium and establish it firmly on the Icelandic art scene. Jónína’s need to spend more time on her own art led her to give up teaching and establish her own workshop in 1970 and she has since focused on developing her own work
and has exhibited widely, both in Iceland and abroad. In the 1990s she founded – with a group of other artists – a gallery in Reykjvík, Gallerí Grjót, that was an important venue for the several years of its existence. Jónína has also been active in artists’ associations. She was the first chairman of the Icelandic Ceramic Artists’ Association and was the first Icelander to serve as chairman of the Nordic Arts Association. She has also sat on the boards of FÍM (the Association of Icelandic Visual Artists), the Reykjavík Association of Sculptors, and of Myndstef, the body enforcing the copyright of visual artists. In 2007 Jónína was honoured as resident artist in the town of Hafnarfjörður where she lives and has her studio.
translated Jón Proppé