UNNUR SNORRADÓTTIR___ ARTIST
Unnur Snorradóttir, an Icelandic artist known for intricate hand sketches and gothic narratives explores modern life, fantasy, and raises awareness of global warming. Snorradóttir’s fast-paced drawing style, heavy on black, brings life to her work. She questions the necessity of perfection, valuing self-expression and creative freedom. Influenced by Iceland’s landscape, her art reflects the urgency of climate change. She spoke with Fluoro.
F: Describe your art practice?
US: I have always been very heavy on black and I guess you could call my style impatient. I draw very fast, and the faster I draw the more life will be in the work. I love using ink and liquid charcoal, although now I am moving into colour, however using it in a very limited way that is akin to an old sepia-toned photograph. I also love all the little technical aspects you see when you look through a camera, although my illustrations have nothing to do with photographs.
F: We have often discussed having skill in art? What does this mean to you?
US: At this moment, I am conflicted about it. I have always believed you have to know how to draw or paint correctly/classically with perfect anatomy, before you can become f.x. abstract or naive in your work. The idea that I draw like a child because I choose to, not because I am unable to do anything better. But now I’m wondering if those ideas are just old ghosts from others and not truly my own ideas. I often wonder if all that time and effort I spent trying to become perfect was worth it when becoming perfect was never really my objective. I am much more interested in just having fun and being punk — allowing myself to create more freely without being hindered by endless voices of self criticism. It’s like wanting to climb a mountain, but instead of climbing the mountain I’ve been told over and over again that I need to shine my shoes first. So I’ve been shining my shoes for years. But now I finally realise it’s time to start climbing and to stop giving caring about the shoes.
F: What were your earliest artistic influences?
US: I don’t know if I chose to be an artist. I think I was simply born one. I don’t know if I’m a good one, but I think “artist” is one of those weird instances where it is the word for a profession and at the same time it describes the core of who you are. It’s how I have always experienced and interacted with the world. Some children love numbers and have to count everything. I chose to draw everything.
F: You seem to focus a lot on climate change and environmental issues. What are your thoughts on this?
US: We always think nature is an endless source, but now we are confronted with how horribly wrong we were about that. There is an old saying in Iceland which goes something like, “You can throw all your problems into the ocean and it will make them disappear”, but we are seeing that this is not true. There is such a thing as too much. We’ve reached that point and now we are looking at collapsing ecosystems full of plastic. We want to be able to mine sand and metal and other materials from the earth to support our lifestyle, but it comes at the cost of nature. We are wiping away our wild landscapes, and the only thing that will replace them is something ruined and dead. I’m simply pointing out that the house is burning.
F: How has life in Iceland affected your work?
US: Iceland has a way of getting into my drawings. As an Icelander, my sense of beauty has been greatly influenced by the island. The landscape, colours and textures have moulded my core aesthetics. So the landscape is inside of me.
F: Describe your upcoming projects?
US: I am working on an exhibition called “The Death Row Mountains”, a series of landscape paintings that are very gothic and metal. There’s no life in any of them. It might as well be on Mars. It’s a very dystopian landscape series, but I think that’s what we need right now. It has never been as crucial that we develop respect for nature. One mountain that I’ve painted over and over again is Litla-Sandfell in Iceland, a small mountain that a German cement manufacturing giant wants to grind into sand and ship abroad to build skyscrapers around the world. It sounds dystopian, but the world is already running out of sand, which paints a target on the backs of Icelandic mountains as something to be ground down and shipped off. There are a lot of powerful, money hungry corporations depending on the public not caring about it. Well I say to those Germans: if you want sand, go grind down your part of the Alps. But somehow I don’t think they would get away with that.
F: What are the significant challenges you face in creating artwork in the current climate?
US: I just know that landscape paintings are seen as very tacky and passé. In Iceland they call them “chocolate-box paintings” as an insult. But I think it’s time to bring it back. Take a close look, cause it’s all gone soon. Only 19% of the world’s wild nature is left and we are doing our best to fuck the rest up. Suddenly landscape paintings are political. That’s why I am painting these dystopian, emotional, lifeless landscapes.
F: What potential does art have to influence society?
US: I believe art is a tool to pivot our gaze towards what really matters. Art can be a base for difficult conversations. And in a more mainstream way, which is not as attractive, art is actually often fashion — even though people want to pretend that it’s not. And in that sense, it’s important to make nature fashionable. To make it fashionable to care about what remains of our wild nature. To make it cool to want to save little mountains.
F: Why does illustration seem to be your selected mode of working?
US: I do love drawing. I have been doing this my whole life. I don’t know if being good at it came naturally but I kept on doing it. I believe drawing is the backbone behind all creative work — doesn’t matter if it’s sculpture, painting or fashion. So maybe I went into illustration to strengthen my bones, so to speak. But I don’t think working only with one medium is something that I could do. I used to be in ceramics for years and had so much love for it. I’ve also been into painting and learned welding and working with different metals. Same with sewing, which people often don’t see as art, but I feel like I am just building sculptures with fabric and don’t really see a difference. The main difference between drawing and these things is that I can draw wherever I am. In truth, if you’re creative and like working with your hands, the medium isn’t the important part. My voice will come through no matter what. Maybe it’s like having multiple personality disorder: I just have to make peace with all the voices.
Unnur Snorradóttir’s exhibition “The Brain House” opens in Paris on 9 June 2023 at 1 passage de L’asile 75011.
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Interview by John Saint Michel.
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