Hjörtur Skúlason

Fitjar / Marsch

Hjörtur Matthías Skúlason was born in Patreksfjörður in 1979 and grew up in Rauðisandur, in the Westfjords of Iceland.

His exhibition at SIND gallery, Marsch, is a homage to the landscapes of his childhood. Fitjar are the low, damp meadows at the upper edge of the shore and along rivers and lakes, where the soil is fine and the plants grow thick. Hjörtur starts from there and then wanders. He sows and plants as he likes, lets his imagination run, and uses wild vegetation and loose, flowing colour to express states of mind and feeling. In colorful paintings and drawings on paper, Hjörtur grants the landscape a personality - and each grass an opinion of its own.

In his imagery, growth stands for spiritual development and prosperity, for hope, inner life and the psyche. It also stands for happiness and self-reliance, and for oxygen, the air moving through us.

Hjörtur’s recent work has been characterised by anthropomorphic sculptures and hand-sewn dolls that evoke the human condition and our relationship with nature, beauty and the uncanny. The sculptures are predominantly genderless, depicting dolls whose searching hands express a longing much like our own — a desire for connection, fusion and wholeness.