Paul Heyduck // April – June 2019

Paul Simon Heyduck is a visual artist from Germany. Paul stayed at the Creative Centre for three months starting in April 2019. In the past years, Paul´s artistic practice was focused on installation and sculpture. Paul in his artistic practice uses different mediums and materials, however, during his stay in Iceland, he focused mostly on working with ceramics. Coming to Fish Factory, while doing his research Paul learnt that most of the ceramic materials are imported from Denmark and Germany. That made him decide to develop materials made out of local resources. After all, Iceland is a volcanic island, where almost everything reaches the melting point, that makes sense in a ceramic context. As a result, he developed a beautiful pallet of glazes, which were happily used by the other artists as well. Paul also got absorbed by nature and spent endless hours hiking to all of the tallest peaks of Stöðvarfjörður´s mountains.

//More of Paul´s work//

paul-heyduck.de

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Paul!

Catie Newell // June 2019

Catie Newell is an American architect and visual artist from Detroit, Michigan. Catie came to Fish Factory for the first time in November 2015 and she has been coming back ever since. As Catie´s artistic practice touches the topics of brightness and darkness, shifts between day and night, she got strongly affected by the never-ending summer light, compared to the almost never-ending darkness experienced during her previous visits. While staying at Fish Factory Catie focused on material research for making glass blocks, that could be a part of building structures attuned to their surroundings.

//More of Catie´s work//

cathlynnewell.com

Check out the interview here:

Pauliina Waris// June 2019

Pauliina Waris is a Finnish visual artist and educator, based in Helsinki. Pauliina stayed at Fish Factory in the sunny month of June 2019. Pauliina arrived in Stöðvarfjörður searching for a quiet and calm place, where she could let her thoughts wander and develop new ideas for her artistic practice. Searching for new ideas, Pauliina did not make a precise plan of work beforehand, she wanted to absorb the peaceful surroundings and see where that will lead her to. During her stay at Fish Factory, Pauliina got intrigued by the peacefulness of the town, that sometimes transforms into emptiness. That led her to try to define the word empty in different contexts.

//More of Pauliina´s work//

pauliinawaris.fi

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Pauliina!

Bailey Glass is an American visual artist based in Charlotte, North Carolina. She arrived at Fish Factory with the beginning of May 2019. Coming to Iceland Bailey´s original plan was to focus on creating a new body of work. During her stay she worked on several projects, in May, focusing on astrology, Bailey created a series of small paintings on paper, including the maps of constellations visible above Stöðvarfjörður. She also completed a mural at the Factory´s entrance. In the second month of her stay, Bailey´s interests shifted towards the topic of death and travels of our souls, she also focused more on femininity and the power of women and their bodies, while experimenting with ceramics.

//More of Bailey´s work//

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Bailey!

Helen Lee // June 2019

Helen Lee is a visual artist based in Chicago, United States. She stayed at Fish Factory in the beautiful month of June. Helen recently completed her MFA in performance studies at School of Art in Chicago. Helen´s original plan was to revisit her thesis and work on its aspects, but once she got to Iceland her plans have changed. She worked with taxidermy on and off for the past years and found a little fjord in East Iceland a perfect place to take it up again. While creating the objects Helen was inspired by Max Ernst collages, but also her childhood memories, the process of ageing and dealing with the inevitable death.

//More of Helen´s work//

momentumsensorium.com

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Helen!

Chloe Jane Hambleton // May 2019

Chloe Jane Hambleton is an artist, dancer and filmmaker from Brisbane, Australia. She arrived at Fish Factory with the beginning of summer in May 2019.

Chloe Jane Hambleton // May 2019

Chloe creates unique movements based on emotions, places and encountered people. During her stay with us, Chloe was working on a site-specific film project, that involved creating the movement language deeply connected to the surroundings. The project led her to the strange story line up, in the other part of the world, the northern hemisphere, Chloe, found herself strongly connected to her childhood self.

Chloe Jane Hambleton // May 2019

//More of Chloe´s work//

https://chloejanehambleton.myportfolio.com

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Chloe!

Andrea Papi // April, May 2019

Andrea Papi is a visual artist based in Rome, Italy.
Andrea stayed at Fish Factory in April and May and during that time he fell in love with Iceland endlessly.

Andrea Papi // April, May 2019

Andrea, as he describes, captures his thoughts and emotions mainly through the photographic medium. For the past years, Andrea´s main point of interest was the balance and relationship between nature and humankind.
While travelling around Iceland, Andrea observed human reactions and behaviours towards the unbelievable and unspoilt surroundings. Interested in geology, he started collecting and studying stones in order to understand the geological forces, this lead him towards constructing installations, that embodied the balance between people and nature.

Andrea Papi // April, May 2019

//More of Andrea´s work//

andreapapistudio.tumblr.com

Check out the interview here:

Catie Dillon // March-May 2019

Catie Dillon is an American abstract painter, she came to the Fish Factory with the beginning of snowy March and stayed until the end of green May.

Catie Dillon // March-May 2019

During her residency stay, Catie was working on a series of paintings as a response to the landscape. She also worked in collage and ceramics aiming to bring her paintings to the third dimension. She was highly influenced by the layers of the landscape and colours of sunrises and sunsets which she was watching passionately. Catie stayed in Iceland in the time of transitions, from the very white and cold, nature changed her appearance towards the friendly and welcoming green with never-ending sunlight. Those transitions, as Catie describes, also had a very big impact on her work.

Catie Dillon // March-May 2019

//More of Catie´s work//

http://www.catiedillon.com

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Catie!

Christoph Solstreif Pirker // April 2019

Christoph Solstreif-Pirker is an architect, performance artist, researcher and theorist, based in Graz, Austria. He was having his residency at the Fish Factory in the month of April.

Christoph Solstreif Pirker // April 2019

During his stay at the Fish Factory, Christoph was doing field research for his Artistic Doctorate and worked on a publication on the ecology of capital. Iceland served him as a case study for a prototypical monetary-driven environment, as made clear by the Icelandic financial crisis between 2008 and 2011. Beside his discursive reflections, Christoph developed a series of situated performances embedded in the landscape and atmosphere of Austurland.

Christoph Solstreif Pirker // April 2019

//More of Christoph’s work//

http://www.solstreif.at/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Christoph!

Lotta Cronander Lindh // March, April 2019

Lotta Cronander Lindh is a Swedish visual artist. She stayed with us at the beginning of Icelandic spring in March and April 2019.

During her stay with us, Lotta spent a lot of her time walking, hiking, taking cold dips in the ocean and enjoying the beauty of Stöðvarfjörður´s surroundings, appreciating the amazing nature and all the weather changes, even strong wind and rain did not stop her positivity. She worked on several projects documenting her thoughts and expressions through different media – photography, poetry, drawing and painting.

Lotta Cronander Lindh // March, April 2019

//More of Lotta´s work//

https://www.instagram.com/artbylottalove/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Lotta!

Jiyun Park // February, March, April 2019
photo: Lotta Cronander Lindh

Jiyun Park is a visual and sound artist from South Korea, based in Cologne, Germany. She arrived at the Fish Factory in the cold and snowy month of February and left the residency with the first flashes of spring-like sunlight in mid-April.

Jiyun Park // February, March, April 2019
photo: Lotta Cronander Lindh

During her stay with us, Jiyun was working on her sound project called Transcending Space, she started a few years before, in which the border between the place where we are and the place where we are not is being erased by playing with live-streamed and recorded sounds from different locations.

Jiyun Park // February, March, April 2019

//More of Jiyun´s work//

http://jiyunportfolio.com

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Jiyun!

Zheng Huang // March 2019

Zheng Huang is a Chinese art curator based in Paris, France. While Zheng´s usual art practice concerns criticism,  exhibition production and art curation, coming to Iceland Zheng shifted her interests towards using video as a media.

Zheng Huang // March 2019

Zheng created a series of three short videos related to departures and adventures and made them available by QR code for both citizens of Stöðvarfjörður and tourists passing by our town.

Zheng Huang // March 2019

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Zheng!

Luowei Liao // March 2019

Luowei Liao is a Chinese visual artist based in Tokyo, Japan. Luowei joined us to admire Iceland waking up from its winter hibernation.

Since Luowei lives in one of the most modern cities on our planet, she found surrounding nature extremely interesting and described being close to nature as the most enjoyable experience. She enjoyed long hikes in the sun, walks by the fiord and looking at how the spring slowly makes its way to Stödvarfjörður.

Luowei Liao // March 2019

During her stay with us Luowei, spent the majority of her time in the ceramics studio, working on her very first ceramic pieces inspired by one of the local legends.

Luowei Liao // March 2019

//More of Luowei´s work//

http://luowei-liao.com/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Luowei!

Ariel Kessler // March 2019

Ariel Kessler is a visual artist based in Boston, Massachusetts. She joined the Factory team for the month of March 2019.

Ariel Kessler // March 2019

Ariel fell in love with Iceland, during her first visit to our beautiful country six years ago. When deciding on the residency destination, Iceland seemed like a clear choice. During her stay with us, Ariel developed a small obsession towards stones, pebbles and rocks. She found the surroundings truly fascinating, what lead her to taking long and inspiring walks along Stöðvarfjörður´s shoreline.

Ariel Kessler // March 2019

//More of Ariel´s work//

https://www.arielkessler.com/

https://www.instagram.com/ariel.kessler/

Check out the video here:

Thank you, Ariel!

Aaron Scott // February 2019

Aaron Scott is an American designer, based in New York City, who stayed with us for the month of February.

Aaron Scott // February 2019

Aaron came to Iceland in search of a new direction for his work. He states that the landscape is being a huge factor and inspiration during his process of creation. On his way to Fish Factory, Aaron got stunned by incredible topography of Icelandic landscape, which, covered with snow, reminded him of crumpled paper. That lead to the process of experimenting with paper, using it as a way to conceptualize encountered scenery.

Aaron Scott // February 2019

//More of Aaron´s work//

https://aaronscottdesign.com/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Aaron!

Alfredo Esparza Cárdenas // February 2019

Alfredo Esparza Cárdenas is a Mexican photographer, who joined us for his third time in Stöðvarfjörður in February 2019. He describes the main subject of his interest as a relationship between human being and the environment.

Alfredo Esparza Cárdenas // February 2019

Alfredo started his project connected to Söðvarfjörður in 2017 by trying to describe people living in the town, through portraying their houses, trying to find a language for universal problems, touching not only people of the remote town in Iceland but as well impacting citizens of small villages in Mexico. Spending his first month in our small town Alfredo discovered that 30 days is not enough time to tell the story of Stöðvarfjörður´s citizens. The same thing happened during his second visit. That is why Alfredo decided he will continue the project for the upcoming years, as with every visit more elements are being incorporated into his own approach.

Alfredo Esparza Cárdenas // February 2019

//More of Alfredo´s work//

https://www.instagram.com/aesparzac/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Alfredo!

Patricia Casey // February 2019

Patricia Casey is a visual artist, based in Sydney, Australia. During her first residency in Fish Factory, Patricia came to stay with us at the peak of Icelandic summer in June 2017. This time, hoping to experience real Icelandic winter, she decided to arrive in the windy and snowy month of February.

Patricia Casey // February 2019

Throughout her both times in the Fish Factory Patricia found the link between walking, thinking and making as an important part of her creative process. Patricia left home in the middle of Australian summer to find herself living and travelling in the rough wintery weather, that she has never experienced before. During her long walks, besides discovering that walking in the icy roads is not the easiest task, she also discovered unbelievable landscapes within the melting ice and the layers of snow and ice on the ground.

Patricia Casey // February 2019

//More of Patricia´s work//

https://www.instagram.com/patriciacaseyartist/

http://patriciacasey.com.au/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Patricia!

Ruth Waterhouse // February 2019

Ruth Waterhouse is an illustrator coming from Cumbria, England. Living by the sea and the fells at home, Ruth wanted to discover the similarities and differences between the pace and characteristics of her homeland and small Icelandic town of Stöðvarförður.

Ruth Waterhouse // February 2019

Before arriving at the Creative Centre, Ruth´s original plan was to focus on printmaking and illustration. However, at the beginning of her residency, she started experimenting with ceramics and got totally absorbed by it. She created a series of fauna- and flora-inspired ceramic pieces.

Ruth Waterhouse // February 2019

// More of Ruth´s work//

http://ruthwaterhouse.tumblr.com/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Ruth!

Elisabeth Kuklenyik // February 2019

Elisabeth Kuklenyik is a Chicago based comics artist, illustrator and educator. She stayed with us in the cold and icy month of February.

Elisabeth joined us to work on her comic book series My Mother of Old Bones. The story is a mixture of biographical threads and explorational journeys into Elisabeth´s Eastern European roots. As a young girl, Elisabeth got seduced by infamous mystical Slavic creature Baba Jaga and her, as she says, obsession started to evolve ever since.

Elisabeth Kuklenyik // February 2019

While everyone else would describe this Slavic witch as a purely evil creature, Elisabeth, during her explorations discovered unbelievable virtues of this old, scary lady. During her stay with us, Elisabeth regained her creative powers and continued working on the series.

Elisabeth Kuklenyik // February 2019

//More of Elisabeth´s work//

http://elisabethelizabeth.com/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Elisabeth!

Alec Aita // January, February 2019

Alec Aita is an American visual artist based in Berlin, Maryland, who joined us for the cold months of January and February. Alec earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Salisbury University.

Alec Aita // January, February 2019

During his residency time in Fish Factory, Alec decided to switch his sculptural creating habits and focused on photography as a medium. He created a series of photographs and videos, which were aimed as an attempt of understanding and breaking preconceptions of reality and what we deem as normal.

Alec Aita // January, February 2019

// More of Alec´s work//

https://www.alecaita.net/

https://www.instagram.com/alecaita/

Check out the interview here:

Thank you, Alec!