D49 Helena Margrét Jónsdóttir: Unreal Replicas

Helena Margrét works with the classical qualities of painting to mimic the visible reality as a form of representation. Her ideas manifest themselves in a kind of magical-realism, painting objects and creatures with great precision that she finds either in the environment or in cyberspace. Furthermore, the subjects of her paintings are more often than not replicas in synthetic material. This creates a double replica – first in the subject and then in the representation on canvas.

Fake spiders are no threat to anyone and nylon flowers carry no smell.

Helena associates these synthetics elements with fears, desires, anxieties, and longings. Materials and textures that imitate life but will remain unchanged long after our time.

Helena Margrét Jónsdóttir (b. 1996) is a visual artist based in Reykjavík. She graduated from The Iceland University of the Arts in 2019 after having studied fine art at The Reykjavík School of Visual Arts and The Royal Academy of Art in Den Haag. Recent solo exhibitions include Liquida (2021) at Plan X Art Gallery in Milan, Italy and A Ghost of Another Ghost (2021) at Hverfisgallerí. Helena also participated in the group show What it Seems – Reality on Canvas at Kjarvalsstaðir in 2020.

The D-Gallery exhibition series started in 2007 and there, emerging artists who are contributing to the development of the local contemporary art scene are invited to hold their first solo exhibition in a public museum.