Tag: portrait photo

  • Ada Leenheer

    Ada Leenheer

    Ada Leenheer is a mixed media artist based in the Netherlands.


    During my residency at the Fish Factory in February, I sought to move beyond the surface – both my internal and external landscape. Investigating the human condition, I embraced chaos and mystery, pushing each gesture and iteration to its limits, allowing chance and uncertainty to shape my process.

    Iceland’s ferocious landscape first appeared impenetrable—fierce mountains, beautifully clear waters, and a raw, ever-changing climate. Its surface resisted, unyielding, yet beneath it pulsed a vibrant, almost vibrating energy. The longer I spent here, speaking with kind Icelandic people, the more I sensed the existence of hidden layers—realities woven into the land itself. I greeted the idea of humanlike ‘hidden people’ embedded within the nature – allowing it to seep into my practice.

    These layers revealed themselves gradually. Every tear, every cut, every placement fractured the surface, exposing something deeper. My process became a dance – moving towards and away from mycanvas, letting colour and form spread and collide, uncovering what might exist beneath Iceland’s seemingly impermeable structures. The work grew through accumulation and erosion, each mark a fragment of something larger, something shifting.

    Continuing my research into rhizomatic thinking (Deleuze and Guattari), I aimed to dissolve rigid logic, embracing an adjacent, wandering state of mind – focusing on the in-between. Mystery and unpredictability became part of the work itself.

    The Fish Factory provided space for rest and contemplation, where my process could freely unfold. Swimming in the clear, turquoise harbour became a form of resetting too!

    Thank you to Kris, Vinnie, Lukas, Haffi, and my fellow residents for proving a generous space. And to Gunnar and Petra in the stone-working space for being so kind

    Website: https://www.adaleenheer.org

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adaleenheer/

  • Jenni Brant

    Jenni Brant

    Based in Dubuque, Iowa – as Midwest USA as it gets – Jenni Brant is a ceramicist, arts administrator, and advocate for community-driven creative initiatives. Her clay work is recognized for its distinctive color palette, slip-trailing technique, and attention to ornamentation in functional pottery.

    During her November residency at the Fish Factory – Creative Centre, Jenni explored two creative directions: translating her recognizable pottery style into wearable ceramic accessories and experimenting with black porcelain, a stark departure from her usual pastel hues. Inspired by Iceland’s landscape and plant life, she adapted traditional forms and patterns, allowing the environment to shape new designs and techniques.


    Formed in the land of fire and ice, where life pushes through volcanic rock and flourishes in the extremes, Jenni’s ceramics serve as quiet reminders of resilience, adaptation, and the deep connections that shape our journeys. Through these pieces, she hopes to share not just the visual beauty of Iceland but also the intertwining stories of loss, transformation, and the unexpected places where life—and art—take root.


    Now, through June 8, 2025, the work Jenni created in Iceland—along with photographs, videos, and journal entries documenting the residency—are on view in a solo exhibition at the Dubuque Museum of Art.

    Website: https://www.burrobranchstudios.com/

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/burrobranchstudios/

  • LeeAnn Perry

    LeeAnn Perry

    LeeAnn Perry (she/they) is a speculative fiction writer, electronic musician, generative audiovisual artist, and scientist based in San Francisco.

    I initially came to the Fish Factory intending to work on fiction pieces, and as soon as I arrived I was inspired to experiment with form: I wrote a piece that took the form of a crossword puzzle, and another that took the form of notes on a mixtape.

    Soon, I realized I wanted to make something that was of this place and only of this place: of its grand peaks and aurora borealis, of its lichens and rocks and fjords. I started researching Icelandic history and folklore, a rabbit-hole that took me into news stories, academic journal articles in anthropology, the eddas and sagas, and personal accounts of encounters with the supernatural.

    I became fascinated with the huldufólk, elven beings resembling humans but living in a parallel world, interwoven into the mythos of the land, and with the útburður, the ghosts of children who were abandoned to the elements. Reading deeper into these legends revealed a history of selective female infanticide, a topic that resonated emotionally for me due to its parallels in Chinese history. Soon I realized this was not meant to be a written story, but a series of intertwined songs. Fortunately for me, the Fish Factory has a recording studio complete with a beautiful piano.

    Though I had worked with singers and songwriters before, I had never before written lyrics, or sang on a recording– my traditional domain was in the instrumentals, ambience, and production. I credit the exploratory and generative culture of the Fish Factory with giving me the courage to try writing and singing vocal parts for the first time.

    In my songs, I imagine an alternate history where both the girls left to the elements and the mothers executed for infanticide were resurrected by the huldufólk with elemental rune magic and integrated into their world, and in turn lived to continue the cycle of salvation.

    Musically, my pieces are built from layering dark drones, piano recordings manipulated with various effects, and vocals drenched in ethereal reverb. One of the tracks also features guest vocals by a fellow resident, @katebelanger, a testament to the collaborative and supportive nature of our tight-knit group of residents. I am currently mixing and mastering these songs, for release in 2025.

    Many thanks to the Fish Factory for this wonderful opportunity to explore and express, and also to my cohort of residents, without whom I could not imagine this experience.

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xxuxxuxxuxxuxxu/

  • Elizabeth Evans

    Elizabeth Evans

    Elizabeth Evans is a multidisciplinary artist from California, US.

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    The Fish Factory Artists Residency gave me the time and space to pursue artistic projects and questions that are important to me. I came to Iceland as a 2-dimensional collage artist but being in the center’s spaces with other artists engendered new directions in my thinking and I found my work evolving in interesting new directions. My 2-dimensional work blossomed into 3-dimensional boxes and coffins made of old photographs.

    I also created a mock up for an installation I am interested in creating to full scale. That piece would involve a 6’x 6’ cube made of PVC with rows of paper chains hanging from PVC bars across the top of the cube like rows of paper curtains. The first row would consist of a paper silhouette of my step-father and me in an awkward dance. Each preceding row would show an increasingly abstract form representing the deterioration and change of psychic injuries over time. The final row would hold diaphanous shredded paper.

    While here I also began to explore ideas of obscuring and hiding information in 2-dimensional collage using cross-hatching, silhouettes and cut outs. Creative conversations with other residents were inspiring and interesting and were an important part of the evolution of my thinking. I’m eager to explore these new ideas and paths that this experience has engendered.

    Thank you to the Fish Factory staff for making this time so memorable.

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizabword/

  • Bailey Sherwood

    Bailey Sherwood

    Bailey Sherwood is an oil painter who resides in Newberg, Oregon.

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    Over the last several years I have done work that engages in the interplay between the natural and the unnatural by incorporating stage pieces placed in natural environments.

    During my stay at the Fish Factory residency, I was interested in horror and sci-fi texts where the grotesque, the strange, and the alien serve as placeholders for marginal identities, revealing culture’s collective fears and hysteria. I created paintings incorporating a flesh-like figure, warped into an alien form, interacting with the natural landscape. There is a fluidity to the objects that invoke familiar and yet strange images of the flesh. This fluidity, in relationship with nature, serves to challenge the notions of what is natural.

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    I am very thankful for my time at the Fish Factory and my ability to take advantage of this beautiful surrealist environment around the village of Stöðvarfjörður, creating reference images during my frequent hikes in the area.

     

    Website: https://www.baileysherwood.com/

    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_scout_b

  • Lucy Sherston

    Lucy Sherston

    Lucy Sherston – an artist and illustrator living on the South Coast of the UK.

    My work often takes the form of digital collage, where I scan in hand painted elements and layer them together digitally. I think of my work as little fragments of a patchwork, that when pieced together build up a sense of a place or a feeling.

    Before I began the residency at the Fish Factory I had an idea of what I wanted to work on but I quickly realised that for me, it felt more important to loosen up and just play without a specific end goal.

    This freedom and time allowed me to discover new ways of working that I feel really excited to continue exploring. I also had the opportunity to collaborate with Harry and Nicholas, 2 musicians on the residency at the same time as me. Working on some album artwork for a record they’d made was such a spontaneous and joyful experience. I’m also incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to experiment with ceramics for the first time, thanks to fellow resident Arista. These ceramics turned out to be some of my favourite things I made during the residency, which was a total surprise to me!

    I felt such a sense of peace during my time at The Fish Factory, walking in the mountains with Tumi and watching the colours change with the season. It made me realise a lot about myself and the pace of life I want to try to live going forward.

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    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucysherston/

    Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lucysherston

  • Arielle Brackett

    Arielle Brackett

    Arielle Brackett is a metalsmith and educator based in Portland, Oregon. She received her BFA in metals at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in 2017. She has shown nationally and internationally, including Canada, Romania, Russia and Finland. Brackett has been published in numerous books, magazines and online platforms including in Society of North American Goldsmiths, Jams 2018 and How Art Heals, by Andra Stanton. Brackett has been artist in residence at Sou’wester Art Lodge in Seaview, Washington, Arteles Art Center in Haukijärvi, Finland, Glean in Portland, Oregon and The Fish Factory in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland.
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    Stöðvarfjörður was awe inspiring. I have never felt so captured and held in a landscape before.The landscape was in constant flux which often reflected how I was feeling. Iceland was a place of deep processing and reflection for me. Being in Iceland at the Fish Factory, naturally shifted the context of my intended water series. Natural and man made inspirational elements formed the concepts of the work. I incorporated materials from Iceland, including; found objects, rocks, ceramics, and local hand dyed fibers.

    Through my two month residency, I was able to complete several completed contemporary jewelry pieces as well as ceramic components to incorporate into future projects. Additionally, I attended a ceramics class with visiting artist, Arista Wilson. I learned how to construct functional objects and throw on the wheel. It was a beautiful and transformative experience for my personal life and my art practice.

  • Riley Faulds

    Riley Faulds

    Riley Faulds is an environmental scientist in the streets, and a poet in the sheets. Originally from Whadjuk, Bindjareb and Wadandi Noongar Country on the west coast of Australia, he’s currently studying his doctorate in World Literatures at the University of Oxford. His thesis focuses on how the contrasting systems of colonial expansion in Australia, southern Africa and the Caribbean have influenced literatures of agriculture and gardening in those zones.

    His poems and reviews have been published in various of Australia’s best journals and magazines, including Westerly, Rabbit, Cordite, Plumwood Mountain and the Australian Poetry Anthology, though he saves his best work for birthday cards. In the past year, he was Highly Commended in the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize and won the Jon Stallworthy Poetry Prize. Before moving to sunny England for his Masters and DPhil, Riley worked as an enviro scientist and studied Agricultural Science and English & Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia, with Honours in Creative Writing. He’s obsessed with weeds.

    ***

    And weeds are what I started my Fish Factory Residency with in August. I first came across the Residency a few years ago in some newsletter or other, and dreamed of flying up one day to the country that’s been at the top of my list to visit for a long time. Arriving to study in England meant the only barrier left was the North Sea, and ford that I did (with the help of Icelandair), after long months of writing a Masters dissertation on weeds in Australian poetry.

    The cloud was low and the fog thick when I first touched down in Egilsstaðir enroute Stöðvarfjörður, but I quickly found some fellow Factory-bound artists and knew I was in for a beautiful time. We were greeted by the amazing Kris, Vinny, Tumi and Miso, and by the spectacular views of the fjord and mountains from the Factory. My first poem was about the vibrant flowers of the Nootka Lupin (a proscribed invasive weed) in the carpark of the Factory, and from there I bounced between full days of furious writing, and periods where words wouldn’t come. Those days were for exploring, chatting with my fellow-travellers and chuckin’ a stick for Tumi, and hiking and camping in the mountains, where I saw some beautiful and some spooky things.

    I ended up writing a lot over the course of the month, though I could definitely have written more. I waxed lyrical about the fjord and beyond, about the home I miss so much, and worked on a verse novella of sorts, a murder mystery outside the bounds of what I usually write. I started a blog (hilarious, classic), compiled a manuscript of poems, found clarity here and there, and revelled in the Friday night group dinners with my lovely co-Residents, the trip to the next fjord for a punk and metal gig, and spotted whales, seals and birds of all kinds. I even did some visual art myself (far outside my usual wheelhouse!), making a collage-covered book of poems I’d written during the month, illustrated by the amazing Olwyn. The final exhibition/concert I put it together for was world-class.

    The dynamic, unfamiliar ecologies, amazing collaborative space and group, and support from Kris and Vinny have propelled me into a new stage of writing and getting my words out there. I spent an amazing month here, and got to drive and camp around the island afterwards—what an incredible place! But I’ve got a few more Stöðvarfjörður poems knocking around my brain, so I have some unfinished business in the fjord. Plus, I need to see those lupins flower again, and witness how much more real estate they manage to claim, so I’ll definitely be back—that’s a threat…

    Stöðvarfjörður Suite

    1. what a boat becomes

    there is a place at the mouth of the fjord

    on which the ocean’s rush breaks open

    twice, three times, as i watch what should be

    open water. a reef there, i guess, at what

    i thought was a boat, at first, tracing

    subsurface waves below the wash of

    the audible. but i watch the place, two

    three times soon after, and no rockswirled white

    is shown. a boat that was a reef must

    in fact be a whale, spuming launching

    and quieting away to some other open place.

    2. water fall

    surely a day’s flow down green mountain

    would be enough to drain that one steepness.

    ankle-deep moss and rock is all there is

    upon that face—no glacier/snowmelt.

    time and sun must surely put all streams

    to rest. but step rather than see, and

    you’ll know that moss has its infinite pores

    that the sound of water in marble halls

    is everywhere underfoot up there, that

    only constant racing or glacial-paced cold

    could make a place like this

    3. construction site

    as if the siltsmudge below the diggers quarrying sea wall,

    spreading shadowbrown along the villageside edge

    mocks blue, and replaces the glaciers that formed it

    with a far sharper sound than a proper deep creaking.

    4. the birds

    last night, frank watched The Birds, and hitchcock

    spoke, in a way, through tiny signs in the house

    this morning. fingernailsize droppings, a tear

    in a leather arm, and no bird found bodily. except

    the brittle raven, stood ceramic above

    the half-locked cabinet, the window cracked.

    at night, seabirds gather in the pools of light cast

    by the dock’s many floods, dipping necks into places

    only they, and magnetic fish forced to that glow

    can see. they aren’t the same daybirds that fan together,

    arrayed against fjord’s inward swell-lines

    making slow way towards the mouth

    ripples streaming aside as if they were still rocks

    in a rapid. ducks, or some other dark bird, tracing

    with their communal body where currents strike tides

    meet waves—where fjord must catch and eddy

    in the clouded day darker than deep flood light.

    5. nootka lupin

    one of only three proscribed invasives on this whole invaded land

    purple flowers resist their turn to greyed seedpods, scattered profuse

    all around this factory, this centre of a brief bevelled life. so many species

    are beyond the native, in the two kinds of here that are this island

    and this carpark. and yet, this only weed loops nitrogen in the cracks

    between oily carwrecks rusting into the fjord, around trucks speeding nightly

    through sleeping village above ninth-century longhouse, far below

    fogged lakes clearing sudden to the half-rot tortured corpse

    of a reindeer strapped to imported wood. no weeds in sight, except

    for every non-mossy species. no weeds in sight, but

    the one we should all agree on.