Please join us for the

   

OPENING

  

  

Thursday, September 13, 6 - 8 PM

   

   

 Thordis Adalsteinsdottir

   

Call On Me With Your Softness

 

 

 New Paintings and Sculptures

 

   

 September 13 - October 20, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

At Grandparents House (Even in Kyoto, when I hear the cuckoo's cry, I long for Kyoto)
2011, Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 40 inches (102 x 102 cm)  

 

 

 

 

Stux Gallery is pleased to announce the fourth solo exhibition of Thordis Adalsteinsdottir, "Call On Me With Your Softness". Thordis' paintings and sculptures are reductive visual distillations of brief yet multifaceted, insightful instants, akin to the perfect ensemble of words arranged by a Haiku poet to frame a great image.

 

Thordis' artworks present emotionally charged moments in a weightless manner, and these light, personable narratives are often hilariously sinister and casually violent. She produces symbolically arranged, disturbing psychological interiors populated by peculiarly stylized figures of friends, family and animals that often float in space. She paints in an ultra flat manner with carefully nursed details, interrupted by repetitive freehand patterns and unexpected pops of eccentric textures.

 

In her sculptures, the paper maché surfaces and gentle colors create a toy-like innocence that masks the underlying darkness for the ripe moment to take the viewer by surprise: a cheeky horse crowned with flamboyant orange branches that's slightly disfigured, a bushy-haired dog with human legs that's sneaking around a painted sofa. These oversized sculptures are ambassadors that extend the atmosphere of her paintings beyond the canvas to directly occupy the viewer's world, introducing our very surroundings as background. Removed from the snug constellation of her painted scenes, these fantastically rogue agents trespass the boundary between art and reality and become even more invasive and confronting.

 

Even though her paintings achieve extremely cohesive rhythms in composition, Thordis does not work from sketches, and this raw spontaneity clashes wonderfully with the refinement of her controlled execution and laconic composition. These visions are dynamic and electrifying, yet stable enough to capture and enclose her wildly imaginative, explosive spirit with great levity.                          

 

                

Thordis Adalsteinsdottir has exhibited in major museums and galleries world-wide, including The Reykjavik Art Museum, the Knoxville Museum of Art, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo, Den Frie Udstilling in Copenhagen, Konstakademien in Stockholm and the Royal College of Art in London.  In 2008, Adalsteinsdottir was a finalist for the prestigious Carnegie Art Award for Nordic Painting. The Icelandic-born artist now lives and works in New York City and was a recipient of the 2012 NYFA fellowship grant.