AVS. Arkitektúr verktækni skipulag - 01.09.2003, Page 60

Aðalsteinn Ingólfsson, Art Historian
Future Life of
Stones
Sculptures by Örn Þorsteinsson
Sculpture is probably the oldest
of the visual arts and always
present in human society. The
sculptor Ásmundur Sveinsson
was of the opinion that it had
colonised lceland before the first
settlers in the form of carved
Viking columns, or „öndvegis-
súlur." The first half of the 20th
century saw the blossoming of
modern sculpture, the period of
Jacob Epstein, Constantin
Brancusi and Henry Moore,
avant-garde artists who used all
types of wood and stone.
During his time, Sigurjón Ólafsson
was the foremost of his lcelandic
contemporary sculptors - the
sculptor Ásmundur specialised in
the creation of form but not hewn
stone or wood sculptures - but
recently two different artists have
been prominent in this field.
These two artists are Páll
Guðmundsson from Húsafell, and
Örn Þorsteinsson. Örn was born
in 1948 and has had a successful
career in different fields of the
visual arts. After his studies at the
Myndlista- and handíðaskóli of
lceland and the Royal College of
Art in Stockholm, 1966-72, he
both painted, drew and made
graphic art. In the eighties, he
gradually moved to three-dimen-
sional art, both form creation and
hewn sculptures.
Now Örn only works on sculp-
tures. He has become a kind of
travelling artist, going about with
his chisels, hammers and other
tools to cut stone not only in dif-
ferent areas of the country, but
also abroad. He has periodically
worked in Greenland and
Norway. It is in Norway where he
mainly worked with wood and
cast sculptures. In lceland, Örn
has cut stone in Lónkot in
Skagafjörður, in the Westmann
Islands and in Hornafjörður and
only used local stone. Recently
an exhibition of chosen works of
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