WOVEN FRON TIME AND HISTORY

Morgunbladid February 17, 2006

Although Ingibjörg Jónsdóttir has not been prominent on the exhibition scene in recent years, she currently has a show in Ásmundarsalur, her fourth private exhibition over a period of many years. But clearly she has not been inactive in the interim, and the text in the exhibition booklet suggests a searching and fertile approach to fiber art. Ingibjörg has named the show Fine Woven Films and Rhymes about Time.

She explains the origin of the title in the exhibition booklet, where she refers to the Roman philosopher Lucretius, who lived in the first century before Christ, and to the 20th-century French philosopher Michel Serres. Lucretius likened light and sound waves to film, and Serres contemplated man's perception and the interplay of the inner and outer world. It is then the task of the viewer to connect these references to Ingibjörg's woven pieces, which are crafted from silver, silk, metal, wax, paper, and animal skin. Some of the works are made from reflective material, which gives an appealing texture and plays with the light. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Ingibjörg's woven works, however, is the feeling that the artist is weaving time into tangible form. She implies this by using what appears to be an old musical manuscript, together with other articles that could have a history now unknown to us. Some of the works are multi-layered, and semi-transparent layers lie on a background reminiscent of a wall damaged by damp, so that elements of collective culture and remnants of personal existence come together to create a new work embedded in its own pattern. The works are not pretty as such, but they possess a certain beauty that is far more effective and touches the viewer more profoundly than superficial loveliness would. The beauty of the works lies in the sense of a searching mind, a curiosity about life, and the pattern of that which we cannot fathom, as the artist said herself in an interview.

The strong narrative lying behind the works give them a literary quality without their being constructed from words. In this show, Ingibjörg Jónsdóttir presents a solid, sophisticated exhibition of fresh, personal, and extremely well crafted fiber art - welcome tidings in this medium.

Ragna Sigurðardóttir