What it seems: Artist Talk
Registration HERE
In Icelandic.
Meet artist Þorri Hringsson who will talk about his own works and his fathers, Hringur Jóhannesson, but there are works by them are in the exhibition What It Seems – Reality on Canvas 1970-2020.
Many painters seek to achieve an impression of realism in their works. In order to be successful, they adopt skills that require both training and technology, as well as paying attention to various details. When successful, the stunned and amazed viewers cannot believe their own eyes. But is everything what it seems in paintings made in a realistic style?
Þorri Hringsson was born in Reykjavík in 1966. He lives and works in Reykjavík and Aðaldal. Þorri studied in Reykjavík’s School of Visual Arts, Iceland University of the Arts and at the Jan Van Eyck academy in Maastricht in the Netherlands. He has participated in almost 70 solo- and group exhibition over the last 30 years, in Iceland and abroad. In the last two decades he has been painting the ever-changing nature of Iceland. Þorri has taught fine arts since 1993, mainly model drawing and how to work with oil paint. He is also known for his writing on wine and restaurants in magazines and on social media.
Hringur Jóhannesson (b. 1932 – d. 1996) grew up in Aðaldalur in the north of Iceland and returned there often to paint the Icelandic landscape, that was his main subject throughout the years. He graduated from the Icelandic School of Arts and Crafts in 1952 and held his first solo exhibition in 1962. He held roughly 40 solo exhibitions in his career and took part in around 70 group exhibitions, both in Iceland and abroad. He taught at the School of Arts and Crafts from 1959 until 1962 then at Reykjavík’s School of Visual Arts from 1962 and was part of the school’s administrations from 1965. Hringur illustrated a lot of newspapers, magazines and quite a few buildings.
Hringur was one of the most significant realism painters that has emerged in Iceland. He dedicated himself early on to the imagery of photorealism and made an effort to understand the country and the objective reality in a personal way. It could be said that Hringur gave us a new view on Icelandic nature.