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Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir BA project in visual arts Report and essay BA project in visual arts -report and essay Supervisor: Birgir Snæbjörn Birgisson Iceland University of the Arts Department of Fine Arts Spring semester 2024 Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir Word for word BA project in visual arts -thesis BA project supervisors: Carl Boutard, Páll Haukur Björnsson and Sirra Sigrún Sigurðardóttir Thesis supervisor: Birgir Snæbjörn Birgisson Iceland University of the Arts Department of Fine Arts Spring semester 2024 This report briefly discusses a 16-credit final project for a BA degree in visual arts at the Iceland University of the Arts. Copying the report in any way is prohibited without the author's permission. 1 Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir.Word for word, painting, poem, bench. 2024. Word for word At the graduation exhibition, I show 12 works. On the wall between the columns outside Hall E of the Harbour House hang several paintings depicting faces. Opposite the wall is a bench with compartments containing a poetry book on one side and a leaflet with the titles of the works on the other. These works are created in fairly direct continuation of the works at the solo exhibition Fragments and Fragments (2023), as it was the outcome of developing a working method that I continue to follow. The titles of the works come from poetry fragments hidden among the brushstrokes of each painting. For example: fragment back in time, gaps in sentences, alone on a long journey home and enjoyed it.I work on them by cutting printed poems into fragments. I prime panels with gesso and rearrange the poetry fragments into the gesso. They thus become part of the painting's foundation and simultaneously a method of rewriting the poems. Sometimes the poetry fragments are visible through the painting, and sometimes they are completely covered with paint, but they usually live on in the titles of the works. Then I paint faces on the panel in a rapid process guided by intuition and chance. It matters to me to reach a state where decisions make themselves, to turn off overthinking and be meticulous 2 Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. Not too much. Preferably, I want to finish a painting in one go and stop working on it before I feel it is complete. That way they stay alive. Our Voices, oil on masonite. 40 x 30 cm, 2024. The composition was created intuitively, and the diversity of the works is allowed to shine. They are all different in size and color palette, painted on various materials, some flush against the wall while others float away from it. Each face offers a different emotion and atmosphere through its expressions and perspective. The work our voices is in a subdued color palette, making it visually more distant; other images have stronger contrasts in brightness and color, e.g., with outstretched arms sailing onward, and thus a dynamic tension arises between the surfaces, depth into the wall. The gaze of the latter is straightforward and invites the viewer into the inner world of the works, while the other faces mostly possess a kind of distance, looking more inward than outward. 3 Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. With outstretched arms they sailed onward, oil on masonite. 26 x 21 cm, 2024 Each of the paintings plays a role in the overall image of the installation. At one point, I felt like a musician putting together songs for an album: choosing the order they are in, how they fit together, which can be first and which last, which need to be omitted if they do not set the right tone for the overall sound. Listening to each painting and figuring out what it needs. The wall text encourages visitors to sit down on the bench, handle the poems and titles, then stand up and examine the works, searching for the words among the brushstrokes. It indicates that clues about the moments within the paintings, about the stories behind them, will be found. 4 2023. Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. Bench, particleboard, milled compartments for poems. 300 x 50 x 55 cm, The bench facing the works is built around the poems, to elevate them to equal attention alongside the paintings. The lines of poetry are somewhat hidden within the paintings, but with the bench I invite viewers to a place to touch them and explore them further. In this way, viewers are offered different layers of knowledge: the poetry book adds a layer, each title, each word found within the paint, each recognizable face. The works also contain layers of knowledge that are not on display, such as the stories behind each moment seen in the paintings. I remember them and tend to tell them in conversation, but choose not to reveal them unprompted. I see each work as a fragment, a fragment of everyday life, a fragment of a moment. This dawned on me when I read the poems of Sappho in Anne Carson's translation. Her poems are fragmentary because parts of them have been lost over time. My works are fragmentary so as not to give too much away, to be able to tell stories without experiencing what is called the embarrassment of exposure. I am preoccupied with stories, my own stories and the stories of others, and whether it is justifiable to use them as the basis for artworks. My story is inevitably connected to the stories of others, and caution must be exercised when they are put on display in the service of art. This is again something that lyricism, ambiguity, and fragmentary narration help me with. 5 The works are autobiographical, but the experience becomes universal. James Joyce said, "In the particular is contained the universal," and claimed that through his writings about his hometown, Dublin, he could write about the heart of every single city in the world. A painted face, one expression, one emotion, can affect each viewer in a new, personal way. My works are windows into my everyday life and can thus open windows into the viewer's life. 1 One Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. Word for Word, Oil on Various, 2024. 1"I always write about Dublin, because if I can get to the heart of Dublin I can get to the heart of all the cities of the world. In the particular is contained the universal."James Joyce, quoted from http://www.ricorso.net/tx/Lectures/3-Authors/Lectures/JAJoyce/Materials/JJ_Quots/Gen_Rems.htm I first heard this line from Kae Tempest, who mentioned it between songs at a concert I watched on YouTube. Here you can read an article by Tempest where the quote is used. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/03/kae-tempest-what-i-have-learned-from-20-years-o n-the-mic 6 Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. Litanei (ruhe im frieden alle seelen), oil on masonite. 90 x 92 cm, 2024. Litany (rest in peace all souls), close-up use of poetry. 7 Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. Streets in sentences, oil on canvas. 30 x 31 cm, 2024. Elín Elísabet Einarsdóttir. Lakes on heaths, oil on canvas board. 14 x 8 cm, 2024.