SHUTTER STORIES by Sari Peltonen Photos by Páll Stefánsson and courtesy of Katrín Elvarsdóttir Strong yet subtle, artist Katrín Elvarsdóttir’s photographs are worth more than a thousand words. here, just a few more steps!” shouts the blond-haired woman. “Come The name ‘Katrin Elvarsdóttir’ still adorns the door of the old studio, but the photography artist has recently moved further down the aisle in the SÍM artist residency building. It is hardly unlike Elvarsdóttir to be on the move: Born and raised in Ísafjördur, a fishing village with population 3,900 in the Westfjords of <strong>Iceland</strong>, Elvarsdóttir attended high school in Sweden, then returned to Reykjavík to study French, when she “fell in love with [photography], I guess it took over—I loved the medium and got completely hooked. From that point there was no turning back.” Upon graduation, Elvarsdóttir hit the road again, with her then boyfriend and now husband, to Boston, US, where she completed a degree in fine arts. From there, she moved on to New York—working with fashion, editorial and increasingly upon her art photography—spent a couple of years teaching in Denmark and made several shorter stays elsewhere in the world, before returning to <strong>Iceland</strong> in 2004. From the tiny Ísafjördur, nestled in the Westfjords to the world village that is New York, “they are two different worlds, right? I think I have benefitted greatly from having experienced both,” she says. “I think where you come from affects what comes out when you do your work, no matter what it is. But it’s hard to tell for your own work.” Now based in Reykjavík, with a view over the 40 atlantica North Atlantic opening from her studio window, she still travels regularly to avoid claustrophobia. “I tend to feel quite isolated if I stay here for long periods of time, so it’s been one of my main goals to keep visiting other places.” Apart from travels (China), Elvarsdóttir has kept busy with exhibitions this year: She curated the Nordic photography exhibition Núna/The Present is Now at the Nordic House and held two private exhibitions, Nowhereland in the Reykjavik Art Museum and Equivocal, The Sequence in Gallery Águst, continuing the themes started with the original Equivocal in 2008. A book based on the series is set to come out in 2011. Acclaimed for her use of light and composition to create emotionally charged imagery, the subjects of Elvarsdóttir’s photographs are “people and places. That’s basically it.” She often collaborates with friends and family. The Simulacra series features four works with strikingly similar-looking red-haired women, dressed in identical clothing, posed in front of the same window during different seasons and weathers, “to confuse the viewer about what’s the same and what’s not the same. Viewers often thought it is four different windows and four different girls, and in fact it is two different girls and just one window. It is about getting people to look closely and to figure out what is going on,” says Elvarsdóttir. Narratives work through implication and suggestion rather than explicit storytelling. “I often try to capture a tiny fleeting thought and turn it into something bigger, to make the photographs fit together to create a larger narrative—I often hear various interpretations of my works, all of which could be valid.” Her first series after returning to <strong>Iceland</strong>, Revenants, was shot with an elementary camera, little more equipped than pinhole technology, in the emptied countryside, with ghostly shapes forming on the paper. “Nowhereland [major private show in Reykjavík’s Art Museum featuring shots of caravans and foggy forest landscapes] is similar in that I find places that are desolate, more disturbing than beautiful. You get a sense that something is about to happen, maybe a catastrophe. That attracts me, this dangerous, scary feeling,” Elvarsdóttir explains. She also finds inspiration in the un-obvious, “things that others don’t seem to notice. You think to yourself ‘there is something there, but I’m not sure what’. I find that really fascinating.” Sometimes, the works are considered and carefully planned, in others, they are merely happy accidents. “You see these curtains,” she points at a work on the studio wall featuring a pair of curtains (windows are a recurring motif in Elvarsdóttir’s work) flying in the air, “I was in Palermo and accidentally went to check out this hotel, saw this and ended up photographing it— that happens a lot. It is a combination of seeing things, grabbing them and photographing”. A book based on the Equivocal series will be out in 2011, for more information, see katrinelvarsdottir.com.
atlantica 41