Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.09.2015, Qupperneq 12

TVEIR HRAFNAR listhús, Art Gallery
Baldursgata 12 101 Reykjavík (at the corner of Baldursgata and Nönnugata, facing Þrír Frakkar Restaurant)
Phone: +354 552 8822 +354 863 6860 +354 863 6885 art@tveirhrafnar.is www.tveirhrafnar.is
Opening hours: Thu-Fri 12pm - 5pm, Sat 1pm - 4pm and by appointment +354 863 6860
TVEIR HRAFNAR
listhús, Art Gallery
offers a range of artwork by
contemporary Icelandic artists
represented by the gallery, se-
lected works by acclaimed artists
and past Icelandic masters.
Represented artists:
GUÐBJÖRG LIND JÓNSDÓTTIR
HALLGRÍMUR HELGASON
HÚBERT NÓI JÓHANNESSON
JÓN ÓSKAR
ÓLI G. JÓHANNSSON
STEINUNN THÓRARINSDÓTTIR
Also works by:
GEORG ÓSKAR
HADDA FJÓLA REYKDAL
HULDA HÁKON
NÍNA TRYGGVADÓTTIR
KRISTJÁN DAVÍÐSSON
– among others
HALLGRÍMUR
HELGASON
Acrylic on Darkness l
Outside your house, in the middle of the night,
while you´re sleeping
September 11 - October 10 2015
Since his mid-twenties, Bjarni has suf-
fered from schizophrenia, which for a
long period shaped his life. His men-
tal illness eventually led Bjarni to nine
years in a criminal psychiatric ward af-
ter killing a man, in what became one of
the most talked-about criminal cases in
Iceland’s history.
Having fallen through the wide
cracks of our society’s grid, Bjarni made
his way back from the margins with
determination and vigour. Through po-
etry, painting and a never-ending search
for the self, he has carved out a place for
himself. Now, Bjarni steps forth with
an account of his life journey, detailing
his venture from innocent youth into
the darkness of adult life and beyond
in a new book, ‘Hin hálu þrep’ (“Those
Slippery Steps”), which had just gone to
print on the very day I rang his doorbell
for an interview.
No reason
Bjarni Bernharður resides in a base-
ment in a beautiful apartment complex
on Hverfisgata, coincidentally known as
Bjarnaborgin. His habitat is a small but
cosy bohemian bachelor pad, chock-full
of books and his vibrantly colured paint-
ings. He shows me around his studio,
where he keeps endless racks of CDs,
largely consisting of 60s and 70s rock,
but also featuring a lot of jazz and clas-
sical music. “I listen to music a lot to get
riled up before I get to painting or writ-
ing,” he tells me, “but not so much while
I’m working.” He also has a big-screen
TV, where he watches movies to help
him unwind and clear his head. They
come from all over the globe, both new
and old. “I have this 1931 adaptation of
'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' I’ve been wait-
ing to watch,” he notes.
He offers me coffee and a seat. After
reassuring myself that my recorder is
properly functioning, I ask why he chose
to tell his story at this particular time.
“No exact reason,” he muses. “This
book has been on my desktop for quite
some time. I’ve been working on it since
2010, with pauses. For the last year I’ve
been putting extra work into finishing
it.” Bjarni notes that he did release an-
other autobiographical tome a few years
back, ‘Kaleikurinn’ (“The Grail”), which
forms the basis for this book. He tells me
that he wasn’t yet ready to draw conclu-
sions from his life story back then, as he
does in the last chapter of the new one.
Building your own box
“The first part of the book is a realistic
description of my life,” explains Bjarni,
“mostly in a linear time frame. But I
wasn’t sure how to handle the rest. I
decided to scrutinize my inner self, let
my mind flow over time and space, cir-
cling around my centre. That was the
basis for the last part, where the topic at
hand was myself. ‘Who are you, Bjarni
Bernharður?’ I asked myself. When
asking a question like that, you probably
won’t get a clear answer, but it forces you
to think. And it got me writing.”
He adds that the book is about top-
ics that have been discussed in the me-
dia recently, and could perhaps help
people people who find themselves on
the wrong side of the tracks. “The book
is about matters of great importance in
the here and now,” he states. “Mental ill-
ness; a child that falls through the cracks
of society; mind-expanding drugs, do-
mestic violence, manslaughter, nine
years in a criminal psychiatric ward. He
who lands outside the box doesn’t need
to wind up in the wasteland. He is not
without his territory. There can be a box
outside the box—you just have to build it
yourself. We might not choose our place
in the system, our family or society. Most
people accept where they’re placed. But,
those who wind up in the wasteland…
they find that they’re not welcome in
society. My story could help those who
are pushed outside the box to find a way
back.”
The village idiot
Bjarni Bernharður was born in the south
of Iceland, in the small town of Self-
oss, a product of an unhappy marriage,
the third of eleven siblings. His par-
ents were working class, and providing
for eleven children wasn’t easy. There
wasn’t much love to go around in the
household, Bjarni tells me, and he had a
Poet and painter Bjarni Bernharður Bjarnason is a unique
presence in the Icelandic art world. He has endured a life
of hardship, marked by poverty, negligent parents, acid,
insanity, domestic violence, murder and incarceration. He
is also a prolific artist.
12
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 15 — 2015
Politics | Bright?Poetry | Redemption
Words by Davíð Roach Gunnarson
Photos by Hörður Sveinsson
Bjarni Bernharður’s journey
through the darkness—
and back to the light
Running
Up Those
Slippery
Steps
Continues Over...