About Me
Thura has mainly been working in painting with various
sidesteps around the medium. She has exhibited her work
in her homeland, Iceland, with Gallery Boreas in New York and Gallery Nordlys in Copenhagen.
She has also been a creative curator of events and group
exhibitions and is currently on board of the Icelandic
Association of Artists. As a singer she is well known and
recently she celebrated 40 successful years in music.
Thura’s paintings are evident of a meticulous craftsmanship
and thoughtful observation. Constructed of thin layers of
oil and acrylics they are automatically linked to time,
the results of relentless experimentation in the studio.
But time can also be sensed in the artist’s involvement
with the subject, studying it and scrutinizing,
to transform its nature on canvas.
Among themes inspiring Thura’s series of paintings are
variations of the flora in Iceland, the weed growing in
her Reykjavik garden or the grass in the moor of South
Iceland where she frequently rides her horses.
As to attract the focus of the viewer to this mundane
subject, she blows it up into huge canvases of oversized
vegetation, lush in colours and contours. Playing with
dimensions she views it from the above, no perspective,
but emphasizes the depth in the way the frail plants
rise from the soil or the moor.
For some time Thura has been fascinated by the possibilities
of painting to display depth. The thin surface of the medium
allows for an illusion, either through the manipulation of
perspective or – as Thura explores – through the layering
of colour. She has mastered this technique in her flower
and grass series but also in her landscapes where she
brings forward the air between the viewer and the
distant horizon.
In her most recent series, to be exhibited at Galleri Nordlys
in November, Thura focuses on her favourite means for
transport - the one that accompanies her over the moors
in the south, the desert highlands and the sandy
beaches - the horse. Typically, she takes an unusual
approach, zooming in on details of the animal’s surface.
This time she does not alter the scale; the proportions
of the small Icelandic horse limit the sizes of the canvases.
Another characteristic of this unique breed is the range
of colour combinations and the seasonal change of the fur.
This becomes an inspiration in paintings that appear to
be abstract and expressionistic, but after further
inspection reveal hyper-realistic layers of painted
hair in different colours.
Thura leaves the viewer to deal with classic questions of
painting; its possibilities and limits, the medium as
imitation and illusion, its essential flatness and function
involving the surface of things and so forth.
At the same time she provides an insight into her
viewpoint on the world and her interests as a connoisseur
and a lover of Icelandic nature.
