Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.06.2013, Page 34

34ArtAegis Hands just moved out of his studio, but you can visit him online at sandman.is before he gets settled in his new space.
A Visit To The Sand Man
Aegis Hands is the last remaining inhabitant of his wing at Höfðabakki 9. The steps
are crumbling from the nibbles of a nearby bulldozer. The windows, coated in con-
struction dust, reveal only vacant rooms and the occasional scaffolding structure.
Despite the ‘one-month notice’ to vacate the property, and his neighbours’ appar-
ent compliance, something told Aegis Hands to stick around just a little longer.
Something alerted him that someone may be interested—an interviewer from a
local paper, perhaps—in seeing his work in person. And Aegis always listens to
these ‘somethings.’
“Yes, I am
the only one
in the world.
Nobody has
done this
before.”
Through two doorways, past aban-
donment and random piles of rubble,
we arrive at a third doorway where
a hand-painted sign hangs: “Aegis
Hands Tears of Time.” Aegis opens
the door ahead of me and we step into
what remains of Mr. Hands’ living and
studio space: a network of rooms that
indicate some movement, but no rush,
to leave.
Fate on line one
We step slowly around a U-shaped
display of statues; Aegis runs his
hands across the rough and glimmer-
ing black volcanic sand that the sculp-
tures are made of. I tell him that I’ve
never seen art made of this material
before. “Yes, I am the only one in the
world. Nobody has done this before,”
he responds. “And none of it is my
idea. It’s very unusual.” It seemed like
a curious statement to make, espe-
cially for an artist, but Aegis wasn’t
being facetious, and he wasn’t being
post-modern. What he meant is that
through a series of intuitive callings he
was pulled to the medium that would
determine his career as an artist.
The story takes us back to 1991.
Aegis is a 45-year-old father of four,
and has been unemployed for five
months when he is offered a job as a
sandblaster on the Westman Islands.
The night before his plane leaves,
however, Aegis receives a second call
from a company in Kópavogur offering
him an interview for a similar position.
“At 45 years old, five months unem-
ployed, what would you do?” Aegis
asks, acknowledging the obvious and
reasonable answer: get on the plane
and take the Westman Islands job,
happily ever after.
But Aegis stayed. He went to the
interview the following day and, by
a stroke of luck, or fate, got the job
in Kópavogur. “And you see,” he
continues, “the difference between
sandblasting on the Westman Islands
is that they use Polish steel sand. You
can’t do a thing with it. But this [the
sand the Kópavogur company used],
this is natural Icelandic, volcanic sand.
If I had taken the first job, I never
would have been introduced to it. I
was chosen.”
Time will tell
Twenty-two years later, Aegis stands
in his studio remnants and tells me
this story amidst an audience of about
twenty black volcanic feminine sand-
sculptures. The figures curl into one
another softly, their rounded backs
reminiscent of a mother huddled over
her child. One of them is even called
“Mother Care.” “I've been offered a lot
of money for it,” Aegis asserts, but we
both know that “Mother Care” is not
going anywhere.
Aegis tells me how he denied
pleas from Ben Stiller for two of his
statues. “I told him from the start, not
for sale. Not for sale.” Even when the
offers started rolling in, Aegis kept his
word. The statues stayed in Iceland.
But Stiller didn't leave empty-handed.
After spending two hours in a locked
room with eight of Aegis's available
sculptures, he decided that he wanted
one titled ‘Cogito Ergo Sum' (“I think
therefore I am”). A few weeks later, the
statue landed safely in America. Ben
Stiller is just one on the roster of ce-
lebrities who own Aegis's sculptures.
Others include the Clinton family, Al
Gore, Shania Twain, Brian Tracy and
Claudia Schiffer.
It takes more than just a pretty
penny to own one of Aegis's statues.
“The statues don’t like everybody,”
Aegis tells me. For Aegis to sell, you
can't just express a desire to own one.
The statue has to 'want' to be owned,
too. “The sand they’re made of, it’s
been around forever. I came up with
this theory that everything that ever
happens is registered in the sand.”
And the sand reciprocates the knowl-
edge, too. “It tells us things, like you
know when people just ‘get an idea’
or the answer ‘comes to them’ while
thinking? It’s from the sands! It can put
these things out there for you; you just
have to be willing to receive it.”
Your inner self
He walks around the corner to what
used to be his living area and Johnny
Cash’s voice fills the room. It’s one
of the albums that he listens to while
creating these sculptures, a highly
intuitive process itself. It begins with
him running his hands through a bowl
full of the sand “to get the feel, to get
in touch,” he explains, before he is
ready to enter the studio space.
He approaches a rotating stand
where a hunk of dry sand stands. With
closed eyes he moves his hands over
it, quickly and with purpose. “And
then I turn it, and begin on this side,”
he rotates the hunk, his hands still
moving. “And then I begin to see lines,
lines where I can make a hole, or a
head,” he tells me as he continues to
wither down and round out the hunk.
He digs his left fingers vigorously into
a recessed region and a head appears.
Simultaneously his right hand moves
tirelessly back and forth, and a curved
back suddenly extends from the head.
He stops there, as the demo is over,
and we abandon the work-in-progress
and walk back to the exhibit. “You can
run on for a long time...” Johnny sings
as we make one final lap around the
finished sculptures. “You should al-
ways listen to your inner self,” he says,
looking at me before staring endear-
ingly down at one of his figures. “I did
and got lucky.” - Parker Yamasaki
Photo: Alisa Kalyanova
Laugavegur 54