Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson

Tibor de Nagy Gallery is pleased to announce Lava Fields and Tundras an exhibition of recent work by Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson. This will be Jónsson's fourth solo exhibition at the gallery. The artist lives and works in Reykjavik, Iceland and Cleveland, Ohio.

A painter and textile artist, Jónsson uses the unique and active landscape of Iceland as the source for her works. In the current exhibition, she focusses on lava fields, made from recent volcanic eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula, in eyeshot of the artist’s Icelandic home in Keflavik and tundras which are artic deserts, near Melrakkasletta, in northern Iceland, just below the artic circle. In recent years, Jónsson has observed these evolving and tumultuous aspects of the Icelandic landscape and translated it into her painted and woven works.

Jónsson travels to her part-time home in Iceland several times a year. There she takes photographs and makes preliminary studies. Back in her studio in Ohio, she enlarges and projects the images, reworking them until she has the desired composition. She begins each work by painting the images on the loose silk threads – next these hand painted warp threads are transferred to the loom. The weaving then commences and the image is combined with the woven weft horizontal threads. Jónsson’s practice is squarely at the intersection of weaving and painting, where she deconstructs elements of both processes. The hybridized results blur the boundaries and sit comfortably between fine art and craft.

Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1963. She has a BFA and an MFA from Kent State University. Recent notable solo exhibitions include Infinite Space/Sublime Horizons at Frederick R. Weissman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University, On a Sea of Tranquility at the Hafnarborg Museum, Iceland. Other institutional exhibitions were held at the Tang Museum, Skidmore College, Reykjavik Art Museum, and MOCA, Cleveland. She was included in the group exhibitions Narrative Threads: Works by Eight Nordic Artists at Scandinavia House, New York, Threads of Art, National Gallery of Art, Reykjavik, Painted Threads, Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler, at the Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, curated by Katy Siegel. The artist has received numerous grants and commissions, including The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, The Cleveland Arts Prize, Ohio Arts Council Grants, and public commissions from the Hilton Hotel Convention Center and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.