Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.06.2010, Blaðsíða 36

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 08 — 2010 For more artists, see our next issue! Or consult your local museum or gallery. Visual art is a
great addition to the modern lifestyle, and you should pay attention.
Art | Artists At Work
Gabríela
Friðriksdóttir
“Life is life. Molecules of bodies.”
This is how Gabríela Friðriksdóttir responds
when we ask her what she’s thinking about
and investigating in her art these days.
You really shouldn’t wonder why Gabríela
is Grapevine’s favourite local artist, period.
With all due respect to the others (and a lot
is due), she is very evidently leagues beyond
her contemporaries in so many respects. Her
work is pointed; it has substance, depth, it
is the result of research and contemplation.
It asks ancient questions, some of which we
continually try and bury in our day to day. It is
challenging. And it looks fucking awesome,
too.
These days, Gabríela is working towards
“what the heart knows is best,” she tells us.
“The shows in Germany and America, in Bor-
garleikhúsið and in other places. But life is of
course large and great, like Allah, and Hafiz,
the old one of the Sand.”
Her work is not currently on display in any
Reykjavík galleries, but it will be. You may
however view her art in various books and
publications to be found in Borgarbókasafn
and local bookstores, and in the in-devel-
opment neighbourhood of Urriðaholt, where
her collaboration with French design team
M/M, Táknatréð (“The Symbol Tree”) may be
viewed.
She tells us the head she is posing with
belongs to contemporary dance master Erna
Ómarsdóttir, and that her immediate plans
involve “working with the ones I love.”
HAUKUR S. MAGNúSSON
jULIA STAPLES