In her mixed media/sound installations Evamaria Müller is interested in
representations of the mystification of nature and science and analyses
different storytelling techniques by constructing spacial compositions
that invite the visitor to engage with its layered components in an
exhibition-like setting. Originally coming from a background in
theatre-/film-/media-theory and stage design she works with sound, video
and text by collecting, analysing and re-contextualising elements of
film and media and creating copies and forgeries in the process.

In Skagaströnd she plans to expand her island-project which reverts to
the historic development of the motif of the island and explore the
textforms diary, logbook and report. The island is a place of isolation,
retreat and recommencement, of the supernatural and the utopia. The
fascination around islands is historically ingrained. For some hundred
years there was a distinct oral tradition that told stories about
travel, discovery and adventure that combine geography and mythology.

http://www.evamariamueller.net
Since 2013 she is collaborating with Anna-Sofie Lugmeier under the name
rendezvous3000.
http://www.rendezvous3000.com

Madeline Clare is a cross-disciplinary artist.  She received a BA Fine
Art (2017) and a BA Design History (1990).  A trained yoga teacher
(2010) and consultant in Ayurveda (2016), her art practice focuses on
the figurative feminine.  Living between England and Australia, she has
exhibited in textiles, sculpture, installation, paint and print.

At Nes, her figurative practice looks to evolve around feminine ecology
in Iceland’s rich geological landscape to realise a ‘maternal
feminine aesthetic’.  The ambiguity of a disruptive and creative
aesthetic will be explored through movement, playful performance,
mark-making and photographic documentation.

The intention is to relate the matrix to ecology; to immerse the
feminine within natural settings to identify voice, adaptability and
resilience.
www.madelineclare.com 
instagram:  madeline.clare.artist
fb: madelineclare

Maryse Andraos is a writer and editor based in Montreal, Canada. Holder of a master’s degree in Creative Writing and a bachelor’s degree in Literature at University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM), she has mainly published short texts in feminist journals and collective works. Whether by fiction, essay, poetry or creative non-fiction, she takes an interest in how intimate experience is crossed by political oppressions and how environment and spaces condition speech. In 2018, her work was rewarded by the Radio-Canada Short Story Prize (Prix de la nouvelle) for a fiction inspired by the Me Too movement.

At Nes, she is working on a novel by poems about self-estrangement, where nature and present act as a key to access interiority. She also takes photographs by mere pleasure, for images color and inform writing. Her residency is funded by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) and Les Offices jeunesse internationaux du Québec (LOJIQ).

You can read more about her here.

Henrietta Harris is an Auckland, New Zealand-born artist known for her
series of distorted watercolour and oil portraits, and her sparse ink
and pencil drawings.

Since graduating in 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Auckland
University of Technology, Henrietta has steadily built up a name for
herself and has exhibited world-wide.

Through outstanding technical skills, she captures feelings of lingering
in time, loneliness and doubt with her sensitive subjects. Her paintings
provoke emotion with their dream-like palettes- eyes are downcast, faces
turned away, doubled in a glitch, obscured by an arrogant pink swish.

Harris also paints smoky, dreamy landscapes and seascapes in her muted
colours, often covering these with pink or mist. She’s also well-known
for her faceless ball-point pen ‘hair’ drawings.

Clients include Apple Watch, Vanity Fair France, Flying Nun Records,
Karen Walker, and many more. Harris has exhibited in New Zealand, Miami,
Melbourne, LA, New York, London, Paris, and more.

http://henriettaharris.com/

JASON LEE STARIN received his MFA in Applied Craft and Design from
Pacific Northwest College of Art and Oregon College of Art and Craft in
2011, and his BFA in Ceramics from Grand Valley State University in
1999. Starin has shown in numerous group exhibitions throughout the US.
In 2017 he received an Independence Foundations Grant to research his
interest in geomythology while in residence at the NES Foundation in
Iceland. Currently residing in Philadelphia, PA., Starin is Faculty as
well as the Ceramic Shop Supervisor and for The University of the Arts.
He is also a full time Resident Artist at The Clay Studio.

“Influenced by the mysteries surrounding the mythological, the
alchemical as well as referencing science fiction speculations, my
practice is based on accepting the unknown, the incomprehensible as well
as the absurd. Rendering material as an amorphous solid, my work is a
record of my physical interaction with it. When swishing and smearing,
poking and clawing, I am making the decision to stay mentally connected
to this physical realm, however ambiguous and alienating that may feel
at times.”

www.jasonleestarin.com 
Instagram: jasonleestarin

Katharina Lökenhoff – “Crossing“: Pictures, Installation and artistic research project

My work is dedicated to find new and sustainable life strategies by crossing borders.  The starting point of my work is the experience, that many problems caused by “globalization” can be dued to an experience of separation. Not feeling the connection causes fear, the main reason (and not only the effect) of most catastrophes that are happening in the world right now.

How can we develop the intense experience where we are not separate from our so-called ‘environment’? In my artistic research project I am looking forward to make interviews with other artist at NES to learn about their working methods and to get hints to new ways of crossing the borders and thereby find new life strategies to heel the rift between us.

Other places for the interviews are Finland (Arteles Creative Center Haukijärvi in September), South Africa (Gratmore Art, Cape Town from December until March), Argentina (ACE, Buenos Aires in April), Italy (Numerovernti, Florenz in Mai) and Thailand (Sam Rit Residency in summer ´19).  Also I am invited to the Off Biennale “Something Else“ in Cairo in November where I hope to have an exchange about “Crossing “ as well.

The results of finding new methods will be presented in an exhibition, a blog and a catalog in summer 2019.

My own approach to the subject of crossing the threshold is through a colour experience.  Working with an intense reference to the body with large coloured fabrics, I focus on the qualities of colour as the equivalent of what constitutes life around and in us.

Originalbild unter: http://dianakuester.fotograf.de/photo/54758b6f-0264-4ffd-a1f5-47ec0a22f463

Adequate to this topic I´m working with the material of a waxed skin, silk material dipped in beeswax. Its haptic and visual appearance mirrors the theme of crossing borders in the phenomenon of the skin as a membrane: It is the aim of “Crossing“ to show that cultural life/ – survive can be redefined and made possible through exchange rather than demarcation. 

www.Katharina-Loekenhoff.de

Ann Ginsburgh Hofkin received a BA in Philosophy from Mount Holyoke College (1965) and an MSS in Community Organization from Bryn Mawr College (1967).

Switching gears entirely, she studied at the Ansel Adams workshop in Yosemite, CA in 1980, and since that time, she has journeyed in both a literal and figurative sense across many types of terrain, always looking for a sense of place.

Here, in Iceland, she has uncovered a tremendous natural “pull,” if you will; sensing a unique level of past and present energy all around her, she has only begun to explore the potential meaning of what these surroundings command and what the inhabitants therein are living with every day.

Her work is included in public and private collections, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, Medtronic, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Mount Holyoke College, Jerusalem Theatre in Israel, and Fidelity Investments. More information is available at https://www.aghofkin.com/

Tulle Ruth lives and works in Norway. Her practice can be described as sculpture in a very broad sense. She has her artistic training from Sweden, Norway, Canada and Denmark and has exhibited in many places in Norway and abroad.

Her sculptures are often mobile and located at more or less unknown sites in public spaces and in nature. The artist is mostly concerned with communication, ecology and feminism. Out from the personal, domestic and everyday life, Tulle Ruth asks questions about life and society surrounding her. Her artistic platform was shaped through the extended project Speaking Mountains which enabled the 7 famous mountains surrounding Bergen to speak and create stories. In an investigating and experimenting manner, “high and low” techniques were integrated. Tulle Ruth always works independently from added energy instead of using sun and wind power. Her art is often infused with humour.

www.galleriruth.com
www.tulleruth.com
http://nordichouse.is/event/walk-n-bike-in-for-lydkunst/ 

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Jannice Chung lives and works in South Korea and the U.S. She has received a MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BS from Washington University in St. Louis.

Her work starts as a response to social issues, incidents and situations occurred in both local and global community. The issues could be radical, sad, upset, humorous, heart breaking, vicious and more. She feels the urge to react to unpleasant occurrences that often cause devastation inside and interpret them into her own visual language using various materials. She combines traditional painting materials with non-traditional ones to create visually intriguing texture and ultimately expand the range of narratives.

She has come to Skagaströnd with an open mind and ready to take in whatever she encounters. From all fascinating stimulants and imageries, she finds stories about trolls and hidden people intriguing and their relationship to the nature and to her people as well. Stories do not just exist as mere folklores rather breathe and live with and among the people of Iceland. She sees the time spent here in Iceland as a starting point of something that can be grown into a larger project.

Website: www.jannicechung.com

Meir Rakocz lives and create in Tel Aviv , Israel where he has a photography studio.

“My Photographic skills and artistic abilities are the fruits of an autodidactic search. I concentrate in documenting and in decoding emotional/social associations within both my family cell and social and professional circles. I explore landscapes of my ‘homeland’ and foreign landscapes and their relationships to humans. I do my photographic artwork simultaneously alongside my practice in public medicine & dental health.