Ívar Valgarðsson – Spill

Where does the boundary lie between creation and destruction?  When a drop of paint drips from the brush onto the floor as a wall is being painted, is that creation?

In his installation Spill, Ívar Valgarðsson (b. 1954) draws attention to the paint which has been wasted in the space.  He makes use of the painter’s mistakes, when painting the walls of the gallery. Ívar focuses a digital microscope camera, designed for scientific research, on the spilled paint-drips, and projects the images onto the walls in real time – as a kind of magnified digital paintings of the drips. Or perhaps he is rectifying the errors, by returning the drips to the wall?

Ívar Valgarðsson began his studies in 1971 at the Icelandic School of Arts and Crafts (forerunner of the Iceland Academy of the Arts), and pursued further studies in the Netherlands 1977-80.  At that time conceptual and minimalist ideas were influential in art, and these characteristics may be seen in the artist’s work.  The artist is captivated by the creativity embodied in the formation and development of the manmade environment, and focuses his attention on the mutability, and the cycle, of materials and ideas.