Keit is an artist from Estonia, who joined us here in the private studio for the month of November, to work on a personal music project; Meije. After some years of singing vocals in bands, it has been a different experience for Keit to have the time and space to focus fully on her personal work, of experimental soundscapes. ‘Dream-like, and ethereal, nature-inspired choir layers’.
The pull to Iceland was initially based on the remote atmosphere of the Fish Factory, and the raw and dark outcome that may transfer into music. However, Keit found some unexpected inspiration in the softer elements of the winter in Stöðvarfjörður, such as the pink and purple hues of sun rises, and sun sets; creating a lighter direction for the work.
Alfredo is an artist from Torreón, Mexico, who joined us at the Fish Factory in October and November, after some months working at other residencies across Iceland. During his time he continued an extended work, on the relationship between environment, culture, and landscape.
Alfredo’s practice aims to visualise ‘borderline spots between civilization and nature, spaces with human incidence in them, but that seem to be negotiating all the time, their permanence within the environment’.
This transpired, in Stöðvarfjörður, to a series and documentation of the houses and buildings within the town, set out in such a way, as one might compose human portraiture. The key, and only feature, being mans incidence within the landscape.
Selected Works from Casa Series // Alfredo Esparza, 2017
As part of this practice, Alfredo enjoyed communication with local people in the town, and explored deeper into the characteristics of the human connection to nature, and local culture in the East fjords.
Robert John is a freelance illustrator and designer from Toronto who joined us here at the Fish Factory for the month of November, 2017. His work could be described as retro minimalism, and often finds itself in the combination of unlikely elements; incorporating bright colours and simple illustration to form a complex outcome.
More recently, it had become apparent that physical location didn’t play a huge role in ability or access to work, and so Iceland has been the second stop on a working trip around Europe. This time, giving room to experiment, to draw inspiration from experiences, and to meet other artists.
Previous Works // Robert John Paterson
With screen printing as his favoured medium, the factory provided an interesting setting, currently equipped for linoleum and wood block printing. This fed through into inspiration for an animated video project that Robert had been working on a month prior; the addition of hand printed elements, giving an authentic and crafted feel to the practice.
Adrian and Sue Hunter are artists and teachers from Australia, who joined us for the month of November, in 2017, to spend time focussing on their personal painting mediums, both involved with depiction of landscape, in varying formats. Their time at the fish factory was spent working on this practice, and experimenting with printing, of natural materials and textures, such as kelp, collected form the shore line.
After some time in China, Adrian began to use the square format in compositional studies of landscape as an interpretation of human emotion. Focussing on water in motion, light, and atmosphere. Adrian set a target for himself whilst here at the Fish Factory, to produce a daily composition of the landscape that he has encountered during his time exploring the nature of the fjord and surroundings.
Landscape Composition // Adrian Hunter, 2017
Alternatively, Sue’s practice is related more to the immediacy of experience and observation. Her work branches into the study of landscape in relation to culture, and how community adapts, resulting in experimental and reflective windows into personal experience, with nature and community.
Ben Frimet is an artist and teacher from London, England, who joined us for the month of October 2017. While here he was taken by the amount of tour packages available for visitors to Iceland. This felt quite manufactured when joined with the wild nature and landscape, and so provided a topic of interest for his stay at the Fish Factory.
Ben’s focus is often based around humorous response to social norms and behaviours, that when taken out of context, seem questionable and strange. With this considered, Ben’s work here in Stöðvarfjörður, became the construction of his own tour company, ‘þór’s tours’ that offered a new perspective on the wonders of Iceland. A history, through the eyes of a visitor.
þór’s Tours // Ben Frimet, 2017
The first and possibly last ever þór’s Tour included;
– Introduction to Icelandic weather and how to change it’s state
– Stöðvarfjörður National Park
– Power of rocks and fire in east Iceland
– Farming and local disputes in Stöðvarfjörður
– Fertile soil and revolutionary sheep
– Iceland’s 4th and 5th smallest waterfalls
– primal screaming at Saxa
Gabrielle Tam A.K.A. ‘Onion Peterman’ is an illustrator and print maker from Hong Kong, who has exhibited in solo and group shows in Hong Kong & Korea, and joined us here at the Fish Factory for the month of October, 2017.
Gabrielle’s works are predominantly presented through screen printing & zine publishing, inspired by observations of the city, and surroundings.
Screen Prints // Onion Peterman, 2016
The boundaries of Gabrielle’s practice were expanded during residency in Stöðvarfjörður, as the Factory’s print making facilities are currently equipped for lino and wood block mediums. Experimentation with lino cutting translated well into the work style and texture. Creating beautiful representations of light, and significant features within the fjord. Each print became one of 5 editions, and the Factory, is now the lucky home to 3/5, of each print!
Lino Prints // Onion Peterman, 2017
Returning to Hong Kong, Gabrielle will take a work in progress, influenced by the masses of tourists standing in a circle around Iceland’s famous ‘Geysir’. After drawing the front and back of this crowd, the image will be further developed into a 3 metre, large scale screen print.
Ann-Ci is an artist from Sweden who picked up painting around 10 years ago. It was a new found passion, which led her to meet with other artists, to learn drawing and painting techniques, and since then has exhibited her own work.
This year, Ann-Ci’s focus was towards a time of personal study and exploration. She had noticed that, for individuals who have attended art schools and colleges, there is a period of exploration, where the artist can discover the boundaries of their process and work, more fully understanding who they are as an artist. For this reason, she joined us here in October.
Previous Works // Ann-Ci Lifmark
Ann-Ci arrived by ferry to Iceland, 14 days before her residency began; taking this time to experience the landscape and to draw inspiration from the nature. What she found, was unlike the Iceland she had expected, in the varied colour palette. This was really a definitive discovery in Ann-Ci’s working process, and she spent many hours walking, and observing, to build up a new and documented colour palette for use in later works.
Nidea is a Portuguese artist from Switzerland, who works as a stage and lighting designer, with a passion for creating in many forms, and personally focussing on writing in recent years. Residency here in Stöðvarfjörður, gave Nidea the time and space to focus on the theme of ‘identity’, as fuel for her first personal monologue, which greatly benefitted from time within the multi-cultural setting of the Fish Factory.
In exploring what we are made of, viewed through the filter of our past, experiences, families & origins, Nidea widened her perspectives of the ‘mechanisms of identity’, and through her writing, aims to express the person that ‘we all are’, regardless of our personal context. Defining what is common between us.
In this research, it became clear that there is no easy or finite way to express identity, and so the monologue became a conversation, in exploring psychological theories and their relation to daily stories and experiences. Overall, concluding that thinking too much about what is that defines us, is not allowing us to live in the moment.
Martina is a performance artist and actress from Croatia, who has spent the last 8 years working nomadically, and is now based in Reykjavik. She joined us here at the Fish Factory for the month of September, 2017.
Last year, whilst working in Slovenia, Martina finished her first performance trilogy, which had been developed and stretched across three locations; The Netherlands, Croatia, and Slovenia. The three pieces within in the trilogy were focussed around consumerism, poverty, and capitalism. Her time in here in Stöðvarfjörður, was the beginning of her second trilogy, as a study of emotion, and radical emotion, which found it’s beginnings in social & online research during her residency.
Melanie is an artist, originally from Munich, Germany, who has lived in the United States for the past 9 years. She joined us here at the Factory in September 2017, continuing work related to an ongoing interest with in-between spaces.
‘the interstice that divides generations; the invisible breath that separates my body from yours. In turn, ideas of inherited, national trauma, and the interdependence of individual and collective healing, are central to my practice. I strive to make work that bridges gaps –joining emotional and physical therapy– to promote our human desire to connect across identities, languages and other imposed boundaries.’
Melanie’s work often takes the form of wearable art pieces, and sometimes sculpture, or books, as with her studied trade in book binding and print making.
Melanie Teresa Bohrer // Previous Works
At the Fish Factory, Melanie was primarily working on a project titled the keeping and telling of secrets. In this piece, she worked on the premises of burden, relief, and displacement of emotional weight, that occurs when sharing intimate thoughts. To this end, fifty-six numbered chiffon bags were filled with one kilogram of black icelandic sand (equal to her body weight), and closed with a continuous, medical suture stitch. This transpired into a video performance where the bags were piled on top of her body, and the stitches gradually opened, returning the sand to the shore. The video ends, with a post-mortem shot of two piles: fifty-six kilos of black sand, and fifty-six empty, stained and torn bags. Both a memorial to the release of secrets.
Melanie Teresa Bohrer // Keeping and Telling of Secrets
Aside from this, Melanie worked on a digital artist book, titled ‘9 4.5 70,560′. The book was inspired by the 70,560 minutes in which she shared a bed with her partner after their break-up, and before her return from Chicago to Munich. The abstracted photographs of bed sheets, act as a physical representation of the space between them.
Given the format of the digital book, the viewer is detached from the imagery, swiping at their desired pace through a previously emotionally charged and quite intimate space.
Anna Choutova is a visual artist and curator who first joined us for residency at the Fish Factory in September 2016 and has just returned for the month of September 2017, in our private studio.
Anna has a fascination with fake, and a lot of her practice is devoted to concepts of consumerism, and the way that every day objects, seemingly mundane, are abstracted, re-packaged, and sold back to us, in rose-tinted vacuum pack. Here at the fish factory, Anna delved into a new realm, of testing how deeply engrained iconic brands are, within our own psyche, and would like to push this further in returning back to London.
Anna Choutova // Fish Factory Works
Aside from a focus on consumerism, Anna took some time whilst here in Stöðvarfjörður, for self-reflection and processing, which can become impossible when in the city, surrounded by constant noise and sensory stimulant. Anna documented this experience through the development of comical, illustrated books, such as a guide to normality; breaking the barrier between the artist and the viewer, through honesty and openness.
Louis is an artist from the UK, who joined us here at the Fish Factory for the month of September, 2017.
With a broad focus on landscape, and the reduction of shape and meaning from varying forms. Interest in orthography, typography, and iconography has provided much inspiration for Louis’ body of work, in presenting distortions and abstractions of known shapes, letters, and scenes, as “vessels for paint to move through”. The outcome then hopes to break down distinctions between physical forms, and written language.
Iceland provided a perfect geographical layout for the extraction of patterns within the nature. Instead of focussing on small details and features, Louis was able to take the vast and open landscapes, and use them for study of their most basic structure, as a template.
Dameon is an artist and sculptor from Austin, Texas, who’s forms are based around minimalism, modernist design, and color field painting. He joined us here at the Fish Factory during August 2017. Of recent, Dameon’s works have been responsive to glacial melt, and the effects of global warming. He began this study, taking inspiration from existing imagery of changing landscapes, but has more recently been visiting significant locations, such as Alaska, for personal observation and documentation.
Here at the Fish Factory, Dameon started with a model from a public art piece that he had been working on before coming to Iceland, and from this, reconstructed and abstracted the work, using his sculpture as a basis for experimentation, using various mediums.
Dameon Lester // Glacier Sculpture
Dameon’s glacial series presents the primary shape in it’s most basic form, reducing the structure to a pattern or template, which is reminiscent of it’s glacial focus, but is not acutely recognisable; this, serving as a reminder of the consistent effect of global warming, and it’s repercussions in the natural environment.
Amy is a performance artist from Cornwall, England, who joined us for the month of August in 2017. Here she worked through various mediums, creating drawings, costumes, instruments, sound and video records, as a means to further develop her performance character, ‘The Worm’.
Amy, as a gardener, has been long inspired by worms, and their position in the process of the sustaining the land, creating fertile soil for the foundation of growth. She has also been interested in the social connotation of the worm, as a small, insignificant, and low creature. Alternatively to this, worms in mythology, such as the Lambton worm are depicted as fearsome dragon-like creatures. The Worm, as a performance character is a combination of these perspectives, as the most insignificant, and the most powerful of beings, all at once.
Amy Lawrence // The Worm At the factory, Amy’s works have all been related to the the microcosm of the character, further developing the universe in which they exist. With pieces, such as a sun hat for the gardener, made from materials and flowers, found here and around the fjord; and self-made wooden instruments, adding authenticity and primitive feel to both the costume and sound recordings. A new experimentation within the project has involved videoing The Worm carrying out every-day activities, such as reading a sewing.
Amy Lawrence // The Worm Leaving the factory, Amy has taken The Worm on a hitch-hiking tour back to Reykjavik, where the character has been out in the Icelandic landscape, before returning to Cornwall!
Emma is a multidisciplinary artist from Malta, who has been living in America, and most recently, in London, England. She joined us here at the Factory for the months of July and August 2017.
In coming to Iceland, Emma followed a growth in her consciousness, that stemmed from an encounter with a humpback whale in America. After moving to London, and being distanced with the waters that surround us, it was time to return to the seas, and to respond to the harsh and wonderful extremes in the natural world.
A dominant focus in Emma’s work, was a practice of writing, a medium which she has recently reclaimed as creative expression. However, during her stay in Stöðvarfjördur, an unexpected and spontaneous focus was in video, and the creation of a looping series of footage of the waves and moving waters here in the fjord.
This triggered an interest and reference to faith and belief; transpiring into an installation piece at the old church here in the town, where the video was played on repeat, and was open to the interpretation and time-frame of the viewer.
Chelsea is a visual and installation artist from Michigan, USA, who joined us for the months of July – August 2017. Her work often consists of abstracted patterns, as a presentation of emotion. The process begins with a feeling, and a colour or shape, and then a freedom in what flows to the canvas.
Here at the Fish Factory, Chelsea spent her first month focussed on a colourful mural for our entrance room, as a depiction of feelings of love.
Chelsea Criger // ‘Love’ Mural
Whilst here in Stöðvarfjördur Chelsea spent a lot of time hiking and cycling around the neighbouring fjords, and was always happy to see sheep walking freely in the landscape. She collected wool that she found during her trips, which she later hopes to spin and knit. She also found herself using sheep horns within her work, that she found here at the Factory, painting visual snap-shots of her experiences and feelings here in Iceland.
Aside from this, Chelsea worked on a series of miniatures, and spent time experimenting with new mediums such as lino print, forming new direction in her practice.
Natalia is a visual artist from Poland, who has been living, studying, and working in London for the past 13 years. She joined us here at the Fish Factory for the month of August, taking some time to re-focus on personal art projects, before beginning an MA in Fine Art at the City and Guild London Art School, this September. The Fish Factory really provided a space for experimentation and discovery for Natalia, enjoying new experiences such as working with ceramics, playing drums, and forming a band named the ‘Vicious Fishes’ with some other artists in residency.
A dominant interest in Natalia’s work is ‘the line’, both physical and metaphorical, which provided inspiration for her main project at the factory, a performance piece involving two people, holding the line and gradually moving away from one another, stretching the material whilst still being connected. This presented ideas around human connections and relationships, the struggles that we often face, and the strength and reliance involved in depending on others. Natalia finds the process of her work to be of the same symbolic importance as the finished piece, and the preparation for the walk required repetition and endurance, in creating 700m of material to work with.
Natalia Markowska // The Line Natalia’s further projects at the factory were focussed on femininity, and comfortability with the natural form, where she created a series of drawings as presentation of the female body, responding to feeling and emotion. She also developed a garden of human conditions, where beans were planted and labelled with relevant feelings and emotions. Out of these plants, the one that grew was labelled ‘Unknown’.
Natalia Markowska // Not what it looks like, but what it feels like
Marta Amigo is a visual artist from Barcelona, who joined us for the month of August 2017. She works using trans-disciplinary techniques and formats, in an exploration of ‘identity’ and it’s relation to space and objects. The process of often begins with visual mapping, and consideration of key words and themes, which then develop through a mixture of drawing, illustration, multi-media, and ceramic work.
Marta Amigo // Previous Works
Here in Stöðvarfjörður, Marta spent time on various bodies of work, taking influence from the space and territory of the fjord, and her travels around Iceland; focussing on the local houses, and the volcanic geography of the country. During her stay, Marta also enjoyed becoming part of a community with the other artists in residency, and together they spent time hiking and playing music, forming a band, named the ‘Vicious Fishes’.
Lea is a conceptual multi-media artist from Minneapolis, who joined us here at the Fish Factory during August 2017. Through her work she investigates contemporary culture, with one key focus being the impacts of the internet and social media, and the online channels which we have accessible to us; giving us the opportunity to form a persona, and choose how we wish to be perceived. Lea’s work attempts to ‘make visible the necessity for understanding our relationship to consumerism’ and to ‘critically examine American’s perception of success, and how that perception generates delusional expectations’.
When Lea arrived here, to a town of less than 200 people, she was surprised to find our factory concert hall, and interested in the way that a small community still connects to society at large, upholding modern value and expectation. She also realised how important it was for her to arrive and be liked, and of importance within this community. These ideas, along with a recurring reference to reality TV in Lea’s work, inspired a video piece set in the concert hall, hosting a beauty pageant where she would play the second runner up, first runner up, and also winner of the competition.
Lea Sorrentino // Miss Stöðvarfjördur 2017
Lea was greatly interested in taking objects or ideas that exist here in the fjord, and giving them new meaning. Her further projects at the factory focussed on a second video project, creating a playful, fictional narrative and ‘dark side’ to the local attraction of Petra’s Stone Collection, and in collaboration with artist, Dameon Lester, she collected various bones from the shore, in order to create a ‘new’ animal of Stöðvarfjördur.
Riley is an American & Australian artist, living in Austin, Texas, who joined us here at the Fish Factory for the month of July. Coming from a multi-national background has formed an integral part of her life and influence, and experiences of culture in many countries, across continents, has fed into her work and travel as an artist and photographer. These creative outlets are important in providing her with a tool for both expression, and also in documenting and working through problems or situations.
Here at the Fish Factory, Riley focused on a ongoing body of work, capturing ethereal and minimal landscapes, finding much inspiration from the changing weather and surroundings in the fjord. This series is also driven by personal instinct, forming a soothing working process, and an organic outcome.
Riley Ryan-Wood // Landscapes
Aside from this lens-based body of work, Riley has created a video collaboration with artist in residency, Emma Johnson, and has also spent time developing an ongoing series of short stories, inspired by geometric shapes. A reading from story, Circles, can be viewed below in the interview video about her stay.
Susan Wood is a returning artist from Scotland, who previously joined us in March 2017. She began painting in 2002, and completed an MA in Glass at the University of Sunderland, with work revolving around the sea and shore. These themes have shown strong influence in her work here at the fish factory, along with an interest in the ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ which dates back to the Renaissance but has been interpreted differently over time. Two particular interpretations which have inspired Susan, have been Joseph Cornell’s boxes of curious objects, and Kurt Schwitters, who also compiled objects of interest.
The 5 Chinese elements offered similar inspiration for Susan’s work here in July, and she responded to the categories of wood, fire, earth, metal & water.
Susan Wood // Cabinet of Curiosities
Back in March, Susan worked with seaweed and the kelp that had washed up along the shore. She hoped to continue this work in July, to create a weaving. When she arrived, she found that the Kelp had changed dramatically over the months, now providing a harsher and rougher material, offering new perspective to her weaving; showing the opportunity in the ageing process.
Catherine Stringer is an artist from Tasmania, who stayed with us for one month in July 2017. She has taken part in a number of solo, and group exhibitions, and her work is very much shaped by her interest in in water and the ocean, with her best known pieces showing dreamy underwater images. Focus around the realms above and below water in Catherine’s work can be taken to represent the ‘conscious and the unconscious, the physical and the spiritual, the rational and the intuitive, or any other duality’.
Underwater Images
Underwater Images
Underwater Images
Catherine Stringer // Underwater Images
In 2011, Catherine worked on creative residency at the King Island Cultural Centre, Australia. During this time she started experimenting with natural plant materials and seaweeds, and developed a paper making technique for use in artworks. Interest stemmed from the 1835 wreck of the Irish convict ship, Neva, for which Catherine produced garments, such as dresses and capes, in ‘Neva Reliquary’ & ‘Neva Vestiges’, as a personal response to the tragedy, and to the women and children who lost their lives.
Neva Reliquary
Neva Reliquary
Neva Reliquary
Catherine Stringer // Neva Reliquary
Here at the Fish Factory, Catherine has experimented with new species of seaweed and Icelandic mosses, to her paper making process, and has drawn inspiration from the landscape, the town, and the local folklore; working on a collection of fish, and seals. Catherine was drawn to the story of the ‘Selkie’, a norse story of a seal woman, trapped in her human body, but who eventually returns to the sea. In response to this tale, Catherine worked on seals looking in towards the land, and women looking out towards the sea, along with traditional Icelandic dress that the woman may have worn in her human form.
Laura Marconi is an artist from Italy, living in Philadelphia in the USA, who stayed with us for the month of July 2017. Laura studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where she received a classical training, and majored in painting. This strong foundation for Laura’s work has carried through her career as an artist, and she still enjoys to work on basic principles such as life drawing, which she sees as the basis for her creative expression.
Laura Marconi // Life Drawing
Laura Marconi // Life Drawing
Laura Marconi // Life Drawing
Laura has been coming to Iceland for art residencies since 2013, and has built a connection with the landscape which offers a dominant inspiration within the work she creates here. Over these visits, the mountains have shown a strong focus in her work, and whilst sometimes working with techniques of realism, Laura also likes to work beyond what she sees in front of her, and express reflection and transformation of landscape. She uses her creative expression to consider the bigger questions in life, as an exploration of self.
Laura Marconi // Mountain Series
While here at the Fish Factory, Laura has furthered this study into reflection in the landscape, but has transformed the process in two ways; first by closing her work inside a circle, representative of her position as an immigrant, who will always be the ‘onlooker‘ of the scene, without fully being inside it, and also to represent the continuation of the cycle of life. Laura then rotated her work, and added colour, in order to show that things are not always as they first appear. These acrylic paintings are open to the interpretation of the viewer.
