Sacha Ratcliffe is a Canadian Sound Artist, Filmmaker and Graphic Designer who has been staying with us in the Shared Studio for the months of December 2016 & January 2017. During her stay, she has been working in various mediums, such as linoleum printmaking, drawings, photography as well as experimenting with instrument making.
Artwork collaboration between Sacha Ratcliffe & Marina Shaltout, January 2017
Sacha has also been collaborating with Marina Shaltout on various performance – based photography, but the duo met during their residency stay here :)
Sacha Ratcliffe & Marina Shaltout, January 2017
Sacha is also a member of the band Dark Marcy which she formed with the other visiting Artist & Musicians at the Centre. Dark Marcy performed a couple of concerts at the Centre and where very well received. Dark Marcy has a facebook page worth visiting.
Dark Marcy; Brynja Bjarnadóttir, Sacha Ratcliffe, Billie Zizi, Marina Shaltout,
Amy Caterina is an American artist who stayed with us for one month in January 2017. She was working on the Pinhole & Polaroid Photography and Sewing during in her residency in the Fish Factory – Creative Centre.
Photo by Amy Caterina, January 2017
Amy is interested in exploring issues such as topography, reclamation, personal interactions, and domestic happenings. Direct and indirect, the real and artificial, and the cause and the effect of human and environmental interaction. She uses a variety of media to address these polarities. Her installation and public artwork continue her working method of interconnectivity. Amy was interested in the small community of the Factory and worked on series of portraits of her fellow Residency Artist and the staff of the Centre.
She was also fascinated the powerful landscape and how the variation in weather influenced the light and atmosphere. Amy experimented with Pinhole & Polaroid photos in the attempt to capture and represent her experience.
Later on she got her hands on a sewing machine for the first time and it opened up a new field for her. She started to experiment with sewing on fabric and paper as an alternative approach to drawing the surrounding landscape.
Artwork by Amy Caterina, January 2017Artwork by Amy Caterina, January 2017
Shannon Faseler is a visual artist from the USA who stayed with us during in January 2017. She is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin where she received a BFA in Studio art. She also holds a MFA in painting and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Upon graduating in Chicago, Shannon moved to California, where she exhibited, taught and ran a University Gallery. Recently she has moved back to Austin, Texas where she continues a rigorous studio practice in addition teaching, exhibiting and curating. In her down time, she enjoys all outdoor activities with her husband and yellow Labrador retriever ‘star’.
Shannon works in a variety of media, She strongly believes in an interdisciplinary approach to the visual arts. ”Aesthetics of Decay” is a series of paintings, drawings, video and installations that challenge their customary view of aesthetics in the natural world. Rather than perceiving and representing a factual reality, her work is an illusion fabricated to conjure the imagination.
Her works are based on climate change and its visual effects on the planet including flood, glaciers and drought affected landscapes. They evoke the fragility and instability of our seemingly tangible reality. Subjective associations are made based on formal parallels that encourage the viewer to make new personal associations. Her work deals with the documentation of events while focusing on aesthetics and representation. Also, her practice is research based. She uses her own photography, documentary photography, climate change graphs and statistics as well as credible academic articles and texts on the subject of climate change as a foundation for her work. Currently, She is visually deconstructing the glacial landscape and formally reconstructing the forms and shapes. These works illustrate the futility of rebuilding the glacial landscape, like attempting to complete a puzzle when the pieces have changed shape.
Billie Zizi is a Musician & Artist from Canada and she has been staying with us in the Private Studio for the month of January. Billie has been writing new music for her album and filling the Centre with warm tunes. Her sound is a heady mix of dirty, soulful, indie jazz pop, and these tracks give off serious bedroom vibes. You can get a taste of Billies music here. Billie is also a talented Artist and during her stay, she has been making some beautifully coloured drawings and paintings on paper.
Billie is also a member of the band Dark Marcy which she formed with the other visiting Artist & Musicians at the Centre. Dark Marcy performed a couple of concerts at the Centre and where very well received. Dark Marcy has a facebook page worth visiting.
Marina Shaltout is American Artist who has been staying with us for the months of December and January 2017. Marina’s work has a humorous undertone and is marked by playfulness. It is based on sculptural costumes, performances and photography. During her stay Marina has been working with various found materials and fabric, creating sculptural costumes as well as performance base photography with Sacha Ratcliffe, but the duo meet during their residency stay here and started to collaborate.
Artwork by Marina Shaltout & Sacha Ratcliffe, 2017Marina & Sacha in the Studio, January 2017
Marina is also a member of the band Dark Marcy which she formed with the other visiting Artist & Musicians at the Centre. Dark Marcy performed a couple of concerts at the Centre and where very well received. Dark Marcy has a facebook page worth visiting.
Melissa Dole is mainly sculpture artist working with texture and big formats. But during her residency, she was working on small sculptural objects. There was a lot of black paint, seaweed, bird corpse, etc. in Private Studio during month of December. Melissa was exploring realm of connection between human ability to explain things to itself and nature as it is.
Katarina is a photographer from Czech Republic who stayed with us for one month in November. She was working with the stone texture and surface and taking pictures of them. During her residency she was filling up her photography portfolio. For more information on her project, we invite you to see project below and interview with her on our YouTube channel.
Laurent Crevon is an artist from France who stayed in residency for two months in October and November. During his stay he was focusing on writing his novel and working with digital arts / light painting photography. Light saber was built during this time to play with different LED sequences. Laurent performed and showcased his light painting live to the audience during our Multidisciplinairy art evening that we held on the end of October.
/ More of his artwork / http://lcreation.fr/ Check out the interview about his stay here:
Carcom is a contemporary dancer. During her residency, she was working on a performance generator software. Software generates improvised movements and gives directions to the performer. This was the main project and aim for Carcom. In the end of the residency she showcased how this software works.
Tal is a musician. Pianist to be exact. During the residency Tal had a concert in Breiðdalsvík. While he was staying in Fish Factory, he was practicing and playing Piano in a Church. At the end of the residency he attended a show at the Fish Factory and joined an improvised band on stage.
Silvia Popp is an artist from Switzerland. She stayed with us in the factory for two months – October and November. Silvia is a founder of Island Institute in Switzerland. She’s been traveling and exploring different islands and doing research on her project she’s explaining in the interview down below. She arrived by Ferry to Iceland – that’s one of the phases of project she’s been working – balance board. Then it lead to definition of reduction and this concept of life ignoring materialism and trying to achieve happiness without it. The last piece during her residency that she performed during our multi-disciplinary exhibition was a silent protest.
Lauren Prousky is a multidisciplinary artist from Toronto, Canada. She stayed with us for one month in October writing dark but humorous poems. Lauren was interested in Swimming pool culture of Iceland. Then she started the mural. Thanks Lauren, our dark upstair corridor became a trippy corridor and more colorful!
Alex Massa is an artist/musician/performer/entertainer from United States. He visited us during his personal break from his as he said professional career. His main goal was to get back to personal creativity field and reconnect to himself. While Alex stayed at our Residency, we were pleased to have a trumpet playing everyday in our halls. Eventually Alex turned his Private Studio into as Una called it – erotic studio – by building cozy lights from buoy.
Dexter is a painter from Brighton, United Kingdom. He stayed at the residency for one month of September. Dexter’s main aim was to paint in the nature and reanact the nature on his canvas, but it turned out that his residency mostly became work in a studio creating humorous paintings. When Dexter wasn’t working, the main activity was playing music in his studio, our concert hall, although hiking and walking in the mountains that are surrounding Stöðvarfjörður. Inspiration of the village even slightly transformed into thoughts about living in here – Dexter joked.
Shoko Matsuki is an artist based in Tokyo, Japan. She’s focusing on drawing and recognizes herself as an illustrator. But! She’s not afraid of exploring other things! She was working on Lino–Cutting/Printmaking during her stay. Although, she was working on sketches and was building up her project focused on the disconnection from rest of the world. Project was researching the haunting feeling of belonging nowhere which started for Shoko when she was 14 years old and is still there.
Anna Choutova is 22 year old Swedish painter based in London. She chose our residency because the idea of isolation, remoteness and disconnection from outer world and cities seemed to be suitable at the time.
“In London I was getting so anxious of city living and there was just no time for yourself, even if you’re alone – you still had all the noise of the outside world just in your head.. And my work was just becoming super effected by living in urban place. I knew exactly what my paintings would be before I even did them and just started killing my love for my art, so I though -ok – I need total change of atmosphere, I need somewhere where I can just be in quiet and not have distractions and then see what comes out. So I came here.”
Anna was working on paintings that hopefully will be included in her upcoming exhibition in London called “BAD ART 2”. You can read more about exhibition here:
Rosemary Holliday Hall is the visual artist from Los Angeles, USA. She was planning on staying in Residency for one month, but during her stay she realised that she’s not enough of time finishing the project she was working on. She extended her stay one more month, we installed extra studio space in the shared studio for her, enormously big and warm Takk for Guðný and Steini for renting house for Rosemary to stay.
Rosemary and her mural progress, 2016.
During these two months of residency she enlarged her project: she was working on making print of rocks and minerals she collected in the mountains of Stöðvarfjörður, continued on making some stone texture, skin–like looking wind catchers that she installed in abandoned house on peninsula. A mural we have now on a factory wall was a part of her project and was made with a stone shadow catcher that she’s explaining more in the following interview.
The last bits of the project was a wallpapers of artificial shadows caused by a bulb light. She was catching shadows in studio and making abstract chaotic patterns.
Jesús Portal is an artist from Spain and stayed in Art Residency for August. He’s an art teacher and writing an art education book for High–School students in Spain. The architecture of town, villages of Iceland and Fish Factory has been the main source of inspiration. Camera, music and Stöðvarfjörður was combined into the mural he was working.
Jesús, August 2016.
The main creative field he is working on – artistic education. His education is linked to being an artist in contemporary art, visual culture. This book is being produced by Jesús himself and his one of the good friends Lucia Ordoñez.
Everybody loves Iceland for its’ nature: mountains, waterfalls, glacier and so on. So do I, but my artistic background so connected to architecture and geometry, so I fell in love with the architecture of this place, that’s why I decided to do a mural inspired by the nature’. All the small details of the architecture: color, corners, frames, fences joined in one dialog for a mural. The outcome seemed to become surrealistic abstract new village.
Benjamin Whitney Buhl is a third–year MFA program student at University of South Florida, USA, specialises in Multidisciplinary program in found object sculpting. Ben choose our Factory for Residency because of, as he says ‘Vibe’ – he was feeling really fitting in our ‘always in progress’ mood.
‘The less distractions – the better for the residency’ he says. This is why Iceland was a good country to book residency in – just silence in artistic chaos. Ben was getting energy from fjord’s mountains that surround residency and getting greener and greener everyday he stayed here. The endless openness of Atlantic Ocean at the end of the fjord was one of the ‘extremely intensely beautiful’ things that Ben did not expect before his arrival..
Nele is a contemporary artist from Hamburg, Germany. She stayed with us during the months of May, June and July 2016. Her field of work is new media, from installations made with textile, to works of photography, audio and video. During her period of residency she did a lot of audio recordings in the surroundings and started to make an science-fiction audioplay, connected to the nature of Iceland. Also she took a lot of photographs and was fascinated by the strange fog of Stödvafjördur that inspired her very much to pick up the pencils and draw again.
Marine Schneider is an illustrator from Brussels, Belgium. She came to the Fish Factory as an Artist in Residency in June 2016 with a specific project in mind, but the impact that the surrounding landscapes and the factory itself had on her made her change her mind completely. She started to experiment with wood, by turning her drawings on paper into 3D sculptures made out of leftovers wood. Quickly, the sculptures became less and less controlled and more and more inspired by the shapes of the pieces of wood she could find.
Lavinia Hanachiuc is a Romanian-born ceramic artist and fine art photographer. She stayed with us during May 2016. Her work originates from an organic mélange of eastern European folklore and superstitions, Latin blood and memories from a childhood lived under an oppressive political regime. Her work is at times following the materials and it’s very short lived , designed to interact with the audience at community events. Hanachiuc has resided in the United States since completing her university studies and has continued to create art and teach the thrill of chasing ideas and making beautiful objects to a wide audience. She is based in Ann Arbor , Mi.
Marisa is a contemporary jeweller and artist from Tasmania, Australia but currently lives in Norway. She undertook a residency in May 2016 to research the coastline of the east coast of Iceland. Her practice focuses on the appropriation and translation of textures and fragments, collected from walks along island shorelines. What is found is an interesting reflection on the island’s coast. Often it explores migration, plastic debris from industry, geology, marine life etc. Marisa takes the fragments and their secret narratives in the studio and translates them into wearable objects.
By doing so, she creates a collective and visual dialogue about an island, as each island is unique.
Sine is an artist from Copenhagen, working mainly with architectural themes and space-based projects. She was in Residency at the Fish Factory during the month of April 2016. Her work here went from an installation drawing to a research about the village and the changing of it since the Fish Factory shut down.
Morgan is a mixed media artist from Burlingame, California and she stayed with us during April 2016. She likes to create work around daily moments- conversations, dialogue, emotions- and try to capture them so they are not forgotten. She is interested in the combination of our real life experiences and our imaginary or emotional experiences as we live life. She likes to experiment with different techniques and mediums (like rocks in Stöðvarfjörður!), rip up the pages to tinier and tinier pieces, and make things on a messy desk.
