Laugh and cry
Sigga Björg Sigurđardóttir
There is something human about them, somehow. At times there’s a head
missing or instead they have huge black muzzles, hardly ever do they have
eyes but still they always seem to feel. What exactly is hard to determine,
but one thing is sure: They feel something, something human, pain, mourning,
affection, despair, confusion.
On warped paper, the creatures of young Icelandic artist Sigga Björg
Sigurđardóttir cavort in colourfully annulated shimmies, pulled-up ankle
socks and fluffy tutus that raise the guttural sound generally reserved for
the glimpse into a new mother’s buggy in most of the viewers. Still, the
drawings are a long way away from belonging into a nursery, for when only
watched long enough they begin to live, spew, drool, choke, crawl onto each
other, finger, trample each other down, cause harm or just stand there
mourning their dead.
The hidden world these creatures with oozing jaws and hairy arms exist in is
a world on the other side of the looking-glass: The believe in elves, trolls
and fairies doing mischief in the woods and harm to the people which is
deeply rooted in the Icelandic mythology finds its way mechanically into the
artist’s pictorial worlds: “I am very much Icelandic I think, and therefore
my subconscious is full of what i learned and saw growing up in Iceland. I
don’t deliberately try to do Icelandic things when I’m working. I just try
to be honest.”
This honesty, a kind of self regard with safety clearance – for in spite of
all, reason’s voice reminds you in the back of your head, the little wights
are not real – the covered-up avowal of own mistakes and the search for
one’s own standing the Sigurđardóttir’s drawings with the tales of
mythological creatures. In sensitive yet ambivalent simplicity, the drawings
look into contradictory emotions between laughing and crying, affection and
disgust, compassion and gloating.
The fragile looks, the gently drawn tufts of hair, the ominous liquids, the
colouring that might as well be socks as traces of wading through a
knee-deep puddle of blood abduct th viewer into the realm of emotions. “The
contrast between horror and beauty and the state of mind you get in when you
don’t know when something is disgusting, beautiful, sad or funny. Have you
ever started laughing when something sad happens? I have and I’m not proud
of it…“
There is no huge stories, no string of successive actions guiding through
the series. They come into being casually, gather like loose pages of a
storybook all letters have disappeared from. The fight with the blender or
tears shed over a broken washing machine – great gestures and heroic pathos
are searched in vain in Sigga Björg Sigurđardóttir’s drawings. “When I am
working”, Sigurđardóttir says, “I put all the drawings on the wall of my
studio so little by little my walls are more or less plastered with
drawings. The drawings affect each other and affect me when I am working on
new ones. Each series then becomes like a family. It is not on purpose that
one family has a lot of stripy clothes then, it’s more like a fashion in my
studio at that time.”
It’s the everyday life, the usual, always a little surprising and always a
little unnerving everyday life that the creatures have to cope with,
sometimes funny, sometimes malicious, sometimes in entire resignation but
always strikingly outspoken and without the façade of political correctness.
They are snap-shots of a weird blend of emotions that goes beyond verbal
description.
„I think we all mix up reactions to feelings sometimes. Also when you try
not to think and edit yourself, which is the way I try to work, all your
most extreme feelings come up and it is hard to hide it without lying. And I
don’t lie when I’m working. The whole point is to be honest and tell the
truth whatever it looks like.”
© Katharina Klara Jung, 2006
My work is about what happens when someone does something to somebody or something happens to someone but sometimes someone is simply doing something or thinking something else.I like to create a situation between creatures that look like people or animals but do not have to be either. They simply exist to demonstrate a situation or a state of mind.
Interview
Are you aware of set themes, colours and motives emerging in each body of work?
....Yes, I think I am aware of the themes , like sometimes there is a lot of hair, socks or some particular colour.
How conscious are you of the images that are emerging and how much do you control or edit the process?
I think I am visually very conscious about the images and perfectly in control of how they look but usually I don't have a clue what is happening in them and don't think I really want to know. I don't edit myself while I'm making them but afterwards I go through the pile and throw away the ones I don't like.
What do you feel about the violence, darkness, humour and the relationship between them in the work?
I guess I am obsessed with the contrast between horror and beauty. Things that make you feel like you don't know if you should laugh or cry and you end up doing both and feel guilty afterwards.
Are these the questions you want to be asked, if not what is the question and what would the answer be?
Yes, except for the question I didn't answer.
Untitled, 2006
