A CAPTIVATING WORLD

Morgunbladid, September 27, 2008

Two years ago, Ingibjörg Jónsdóttir held a very personal and cohesive exhibition in the ASI Art Museum, where she showed that she is one of our most intriguing fiber artists. She has now taken us by surprise once again with a gripping installation entitled Parallel Universes, at the Reykjavík Art Museum in Hafnarhús.

In addition to wall hangings, the exhibition features a closed space of the artist's creation, a specially designed area for the installation that grows like flora up the walls. Multicolored threads, some phosphorescent, are coiled around narrow bobbins fastened together in a delicate construction.

Ingibjörg has set up a three-minute light show in the closed space, reminiscent of the transformation between day and night. The color of the walls changes with the light, the colors of the coiled threads shift and alter, shadows come to life and fade away. The installation calls to mind organic vegetation, the structure of a child's toy, or a scientific experiment, but the connection with weaving is strong as well - something that comes into being over a long period of time.

Time is a haunting theme in Ingibjörg's art. In this installation, the contemporary and the traditional flow effortlessly into one another, and the viewer's time becomes an inseparable part of the work.

I was lucky enough to be in the exhibition hall at the same time as a group of pre-school children who were immersing themselves in this captivating world - so much so that, as I was leaving, they were asking for more -"just one more time ..." - and this gave the work enhanced vigor while revealing that the installation works not only at a visual level, but as food for deeper thought. The text in the exhibition booklet stimulates such contemplation.

A wall hanging crafted from chips of stone, parchment, and nylon thread is an intriguing piece, at once modern and classical. This exhibition gives insight into the breadth of the artist's technique, and it would have been a pleasure to see more of it.

Ragna Sigurdardóttir