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Artist in Residence – Sabine Büttner

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Sabine Büttner is an artist from Cologne/ Germany.

My artistic work usually begins with a look at what is thrown away, left behind, unusable or inconspicuous. Only in the creation process do I decide which artistic means and which formal language to use in a work. When something, such as a shape, an image, or a part of an object, grabs my attention, I separate it. I juxtapose these materials to create collages, objects, and drawings. I like to let things happen that want to happen. I choose how I want to see things. Abstract works emerge through my intuition, tending towards minimalism. I play and experiment a lot and I cherish my artistic process.

Furthermore, I have dealt with objects and works that include the wall and extend the image / objekt into the room. I am interested in space as a three dimensional drawing board.

You can find more of Sabine’s work on her website sabinebuettner.com      https://www.instagram.com/sbue.ttner/

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Artist in Residence – Leafy Yeh

Yun Ye (Leafy Yeh) is a Los Angeles-based photographer and visual artist from China. She has been engaged with photographic projects exploring an authentic vision of the world through narrative and documentary of life and growth. 

“During my residency time, I have collaborated with other artists and worked on my documentary photography project “Becoming Home” about the families living in a small town Skagaströnd.

Here in Skagaströnd, I find people moved away and came back or they have never left this small town.

As I travel so much, I am lacking a sense of home. Through spending time with these families, I learned about what home is.

It was so hard to say goodbye but I love everything.”

You can see more of Leafy’s work at https://www.leafyyeh.com/  https://www.instagram.com/leafy.yeh/

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Artist in Residence – Grace Paraluch

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During my time at NES residency, I have been trying to flesh out a personal understanding of the intertextuality of aesthetics in adornment. I’m interested in the influence of decoration on the purpose and perception of ordinary things.

Having come with a limited set of tools I found myself with a sense of both restriction and freedom in my artistic practice. I have had fun finding my subject matter and sculptural materials in a mix of things from here in Skagaströnd (and surrounding areas) and personal artistic interests.

During these early material experimentations, I have been recreating ornaments and embellishing objects from different temporal and geographical contexts which use aspects of adornment from a similar lexicon of material and form.

I’m trying to uncover perceptible transformations in meaning and understanding which occur through dichotomies of hiding and revealing; this begins with an exploratory understanding of ornamental dialects in relation to one another.

 

I want to unveil a sort of subconscious metamorphosis that takes place by combining materials and aesthetics. Reading these objects, we become less reliant on the distinction of truth and fiction which presents a playground for myth and fable staged upon the regular.

 

 

Grace Paraluch is an emerging visual artist living and working in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). She graduated from Concordia University with a BFA in Painting in 2020 and has continued to practice and show work both in Canada and internationally.

Grace Paraluch’s paintings and sculptures take a diaristic approach to decoding social readings bound to objects and materials. She works in multiple disciplines towards deciphering the hierarchies and intentions within the visual language of self-identification to create persona through belongings.

You can see more of Grace´s work on her website and Instagram page  https://graceparaluch.com/ https://www.instagram.com/g.r.a.c.e_p.a.r.a.l.u.c.h/

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Artist in Residence – Léa Molinier

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I am a photographer and I like to intertwine documentary and artistic approaches in my work. I am mostly interested in how we, as humans, inhabit our environment and build stories around it.

These stories can be personal and tell about a specific phase in somebody’s life or they can be multi-generational and deeply rooted in our subconscious mind.

Here in Skagaströnd I have been diving into a project I had already started 2 years ago in Iceland. It evolves around Icelandic mythologies and supernatural beliefs, from Asatru religion to experiences related to the huldufolk.

I love how every place in Iceland is connected to some story that shapes the experience Icelandic people have of their surroundings.

So my time here has been mainly about meeting people willing to share these stories with me and discovering places that have a strong energy to them.

You can find more of Léa’s work on her website http://www.lea-molinier.fr/ or https://www.instagram.com/leamophotographie/
Portrait credit: Grace Paraluch

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Artist in Residence – Clotilde Francillon

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In between graphic design and illustration, I like to explore how images can tell a story through simple lines. Making joyful, poetic or sarcastic atmospheres with colourful elements and naive style.
You can find more of Clotilde’s graphic designs on her website https://www.paperpistol.com/ or https://www.instagram.com/paper.pistol/

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Writer in Residence – Henry Fletcher

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Henry is a nature facilitator and writer, and, over the past decade, has managed a trail project in Iceland’s Westfjords region. 

Through this project, he has co-authored a four-part creative guide, Wayfinding in the Westfjords. Imbued with practical advice, as well as story, poetry and ritual, the guide will deepen your relationship with both human and nonhuman counterparts as you walk historic trails along land and sea.

For more information and pre-sales: wayfinding.guide

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Artist in Residence – Petra Steeger

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I live and work in Rostock / Germany. In my art, I deal with topics from natural history, in connection with the question of the relationship between humans and nature.

Particularly under the aspect of the waste of resources and the destruction of our environment, I ask how nature and the organisms living in it change in the Anthropocene.

The starting point for my work often are things that I find and collect according to my inner compass.

These can be remnants of civilization, washed up from the sea, or remnants from nature such as plants or bones. From this, I develop objects, often alienated with embroidery.

I also quote nature in my drawings; people and animals often enter into a symbiosis here or I invent new fantastic beings.

I was hoping for finds from NES and the wild beaches of Iceland that would inspire me for new objects. I was excited to see the segments that the sea washed up.

Instead, I found mountains of techno-fossils and plastic. Their sheer size surprised me. It contradicts the untouched landscape and the beauty of the mountains.

When hiking on lonely beaches, the landings of the Atlantic show the widespread human traces that cannot be overlooked. They cannot yet be detected in the geological rock strata, but for how much longer?

In fact, I searched and found, but the landscape was so dominant that it played the main role in my work that was created here.
You can see more on Petra´s website http://www.petra-steeger.de/

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Artist in Residency – Christine Reiter

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I live and work in Augsburg. I have been working artistically since 1998 and since then I have also been represented in national and international  exhibitions.

For my work, I use everyday materials, which I process and transform playfully but methodically, without denying the origin of the respective material. I use paper, cardboard,  tape, Styrodur, construction foam, wire, wood, wax, thread, but also ink, colored pencils and pencil. I take everyday objects, used things, found things, dismantle and deform them, turn everything upside down so that the individual parts move away from their previous content.

Finally, I put the individual parts together – to something completely new and different. The result is an object, a form filled with meaning, which leads the viewer to their own thoughts, inspirations and stories.

For me, the mountains are an integral part of my artistic and motivic repertoire. Mountains are my personal place of longing, they stand for hope, freedom, strength, overcoming, failure, consolation, happiness. A place where you can feel the power of nature:

They are beautiful, impressive and at the same time can be life-threatening and are endangered by settlement and climate change.

Here in Iceland I found a mountain world that I had never seen before in this form. Above all, the untouched vastness and wildness influenced me so much that I took up this topic here.

You can view more of Christine´s work on her website https://www.christine-reiter.de/

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Artist in Residence – Grace Hailstone

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I am a printmaker working mostly with intaglio and relief techniques such as etching, linocut, and monoprint.

My work is an ongoing investigation into the experience of landscape and the flow of time, inspired by geological forms and the elements.

My work reimagines experiences of natural phenomena to create images that are suspended between reality and imagination. It attempts to link our embodiment in the landscape to our memory of it.

Photography is a starting point for me and, by a process of drawing, digital manipulation and layering, I reconstruct the memory of the experience to create prints.

The process of then creating prints for me is quite spontaneous and I like to discover the image as I am making, letting the materials guide me, although I have an overall intentionMy prints are distilled images of experience and are intended to act as spaces of contemplation. @graciehailstone
http://www.gracehailstone.com

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Artist in Residence – Ada Pilar Cruz

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I am in Iceland again working for one month in a large studio at the edge of a fjord in an isolated town.

Walking every day, breathing deeply, taking in my surroundings, and marveling at the continuously changing sky and water and shore I take photographs and gather seaweed because it is in abundance and I go to the studio.

 I shape the seaweed, predominantly kelp,  and hang it to dry; make drawings and paintings of it or print it.  I am also making paper with it.

I hang these things on the wall behind the table where I work and I look at it, consider it, and watch how it changes, or how I make changes with this material.

The seaweed texture seems to be an imprint of the ripples of the water and be the texture of the clouds. When dried, the once wet material forms into unusual shapes of translucent colors.  It is amazing.

You can find out more about Ada and her work on her website and Instagram page  http://www.adapilarcruz.com/. https://www.instagram.com/adapilarcruz/

Skagaströnd, Iceland