In the year 2000 when I was in the university studying for my teachers diploma I spent most of my time studying with two women I had known very little before; Svanhildur and Sonja but I had met them first in art school where they were three or four years ahead of me in the study´s.
I got to know them very well that year we studied for the teaching diploma and we used to study together at a Danish restaurant in Iceland called Jómfrúin (The virgin or The maid) where we could eat open sandwiches and drink light beer while studying.
Today Sonja lives in Oslo Norway but me and Svanhildur still in Iceland. We often try to meet up when Sonja comes for a visit to Iceland.
Yesterday we met the three of us as Sonja is visiting Iceland and we took her for a visit to our art studios, first to Svanhildur and her sisters Sara´s studio and then to my studio "the Hiddenbay lodge".
Svanhildur and her sister Sara have been painting as a duo for 7 years now but their paintings are in some parts autobiographic.
Their studio is at Korpúlfstaðir in Reykjavik. Korpúlfstaðir was an old Icelandic milk farm until the year 1934 but has been used as an art complex for some time now.
After Svanhildurs education she stopped painting as she had to work a lot for living but she teaches kindergarden kids. That changed in the year 2010 though she is still teching kindergarden kids beside making her art works.
Sara was asked to participate in a happening at the anual "Reykjavik Culture night" where some painters from around the country where asked to paint "Iceland" on a big canvas. She was supposed to paint the west fjords but the sisters are born and raced in Ísafjörður in the west fjords. This was such a big canvas and there was a time limit on the painting so she kind of panicked a bit. Svanhildur was in the audience and jumped in to ease her sister down and help her out. That was the beginning of so much more to come :)
At that time Svanhildur had been dealing with cancer and was going to radiation therapy so she was in a sick leave. As the "duo painting" on culture night was such a success, Sara invited Svanhildur to come to her studio once a week to paint with her which she did and they still paint together for long sessions at a time.
Before this Sara had been a successful painter here in Iceland and Svanhildur mostly in an Art pause but both of them painters even though doing different stuff and in a different amount. But when the two artist meet they make something very different from what they paint separately.
Since august 2010 the sisters have been painting and exhibiting as a duo and mostly they paint on rather big canvases autobiographic paintings. They play a lot with words as well for example showcased in the painting called "Tiger in the woods" but that one depicts Tiger Woods the famous golfer with a tiger in a wood. That painting has been sold now. This one is made for the same theme but it is called "Fugl undir pari" or "Birdie under par" and beside depicting Tiger Woods and the bird we have the pair of our former president of Iceland and his wife Dorrit Mussajef.
They also use more golf related titles in some of them but there is a golf course in the lawn in front of Korpúlfstaðir. This one is for example called "Sex undir pari" or "6 under par" (sex under a pair) ;)
In one serie they painted a painting inside a painting inside another painting and etcetera and often some more famous people pop up in their paintings. Sometimes they even paint references to the art history for example in this one where Johannes Vermeers "Milkmaid" is pouring them a drink.
And in this one we have Frida Kahlo with the sisters as well as Jesus and some other favorite persons.
The sisters talk a lot on the phone where they are juggling their thoughts and ideas and decide what to paint. Then they meet up at the studio and as Svanhildur said in one of their interviews "One plus one makes more than two" as they feel the third eliment being born when they paint together.
Even though the sisters are very different and Sara is 8 years older than Svanhildur they argue a lot like sisters often do but all arguments stop and they melt together when painting and become like the same person in a way.
(I love how the wall and the window meets in the middle between those two paintings and makes them one in two)
There is always some playfulness in their work even though they are depicting all kinds of hard experiences like for example Svanhildurs cancer treatment and Sara´s cardiac arrest but she died for few minutes a couple of years ago after her heart stopped pounding. Superman is newer far away from their life threatening trials and George Clooney even pops up in the hospital rooms.
They have also painted their families cats where it is obvious who owns whoom. The cats are huge but Sara and Svanhildur tiny but not vise versa.
Through out their collaboration they have experimented with different kind of texture in the paintings.
Some of them are rawer and more matt but Svanhildur is a bit keen on trying out a glossy more oily effect some day.
Now they are working on a bit different serie where the wolf plays a big part. They made a painting called "Wolftime" with a group of people in front of a meat counter in the grocery store but all the people in front of the counter are family members beside Amy Winehouse who is also with them at the counter :) (You can see a glimps of that painting in the corner of the picture with the cats but better view of it on their website).
I also love the painting of them sitting with their grown up baby´s in their laps. It´s a bit like a religious icon. That one has become epic.
In the studio they also have some nice masks so Svanhildur could become the wolf for us or even a cow ;)
The newest paintings are a bit darker but the strange animals and theme in some of them reminds you a bit of Francis Bacons paintings and even of Josef Beuys´s performances though Svanhildur is very fond of Hieronymus Bosch as well. I look forward seeing their next exhibition.
The sisters have made postcards and cups with some of their paintings on and they can be bought at museum stores in Icealnd as well as in the gallery and design shop "Skúmaskot" in Reykjavik. https://www.facebook.com/skumaskot.art.design/
It will be very interesting to follow up on the future development of the artist duo and if you are interested in seeing more of their art you can check out their website www.duosisters.com
There is always fun when meeting Sonja and Svanhildur so we had a grate arty day in our studios yesterday.
I hope you have a grate arty day today as well!
M