IcelandGlow 22 Print

An E-mail conversation about glaciers, elves and “lyrical agitations”... between Annette Goessel and cultural journalist Kathrin Hondl. KH: You grew up in Lübeck, studied in Stuttgart and Vienna and have now been living in Berlin for a quite a while. What was it that brought you to Iceland a few years ago? AG: It was twelve years ago in Berlin that my family and I were invited by Icelandic friends to visit their country. We were lucky enough to have enjoyed a journey that was very particular, personal and adventurous. That was probably the reason Iceland became a “love at first sight” country for me and I became an “Icelandophile”. KH: Iceland is quite popular with many people as a tourist destination. What was it that interested you artistically? Why did you decide to work there? AG: It's true, there is plenty of tourism in Iceland by now. A lot is changing in the country. Nevertheless, there are still largely uninhabited landscapes. Color harmonies, structures, light direction, glacier formations, lava fields, snow, water, rock ... Back in my Berlin studio, the visible and invisible forces of nature had a lasting effect on me. When I was given the opportunity to work as an artist in residence in Kolsstaðir, I was right in the middle of this Nordic materiality. KH: How did these forces of nature, this Nordic materiality affect your painting? In the past you often used metallic colors – gold, copper, silver – in your paintings. Do the natural forces of Iceland have anything to do with their disappearance? AG: When I was working with metallic paints, I lived with different references and placed myself in a different context. The main theme was ornament, and I painted silver, copper, gold as representative colors par excellence, in geometric meanders. After my first visit to Iceland I painted two further large paintings with silver running down the canvas. Maybe these are “transitional images”. But then I deliberately distanced myself from this painterly system of unchanging formulations. I wanted to re-enter somewhere entirely different. Iceland was after all an exit from complexity, a quest for new painterly possibilities. KH: An exit from complexity? Does this beautiful wording also hint at a certain “back to nature”? AG: Or back to the beginning? Or resigned happiness? Historically, the glorification of the empty landscape is something relatively new. In the past it was the Arcadian landscapes that were perceived as beautiful; and it is perhaps only a supersaturated society that can perceive this extremely empty landscape as beautiful. You question yourself.... and to paint in seclusion, outside in the elements, also means to lose yourself, and something else can come up in this free space. The weather, culture, nature – these are big themes. They are clearly present in Iceland. KH: The weather... and the climate! Climate change and the climate crisis are clearly noticeable and visible in Iceland. In August a large glacier, the Okjökull, was ‘buried’ there. Scientists had already declared it dead in 2014 because the ice had melted. This former glacier is now called Ok – and that's the title of one of your paintings in the exhibition. Your Ok is a tondo – a circular picture. This format since antiquity has often been used for decorative purposes in architecture ... Why did you choose this circular format for the dead glacier? AG: In antiquity, it was man at the center of a tondo, because he still had to be sought. In my case it is nature. The circle as a symbol for unity, completeness, as a densification of energy. An ode to nature. When I was in Iceland, I was told that the weather forecast, especially on Saturdays, is still today of great interest and importance. Knowing what the weather is like throughout the country is also a safety issue. In addition to air and ocean currents, the weather is also significantly influenced by glaciers. The weather report on the radio describes in a circular way, starting in Keflavik, a kind of round trip across 20 weather stations. I began to listen to it as an abstract radio play, first in Iceland and now in my Berlin studio. I was in Iceland when the plaque for the Okjökull was put up. It became so directly noticeable what we are doing here. The weather makes the landscape! The OK tondo is a picture that I started very concretely, almost palpably, then overpainted it – a glacier fragment. I brought it back again into concreteness and painted over it again. This went on forever until I made it disappear. What remains is the idea of a glacier – a mirage. KH: A mirage ... is an optical illusion. Something magical? Iceland is the land of elves and trolls. As they say. Can you say something about that? AG: When I arrived in Kolsstaðir and my host showed me the studio, the computer-controlled lighting system and the premises, he pointed to a rock on a hill above the studio and explained to me that this was the most beautiful elf house in Iceland. And when the sun shines at a certain angle onto the face of the rock, it looks as if the door in the elf house is opening. I thought to myself, coming from Berlin, okay, that's a little Icelandic folklore for the city dweller. But... I liked this story and often climbed up there. Maybe too often! Because a few days later – I was alone there now, nobody far and wide – I worked again until late at night on my “lava pictures”, placed some in passe-partouts and leaned them against the wall. The next morning there were color stains like small traces on the previously spotlessly clean passe-partouts. I stared at them and thought – no way!? Are there any mice here? Can they walk horizontally along the wall in Iceland? My host came back from Reykjavik after some time and I showed him the passe-partouts and asked him where these stains might have come from. He answered in in all seriousness: “Annette, that were the elves.” KH: What are these images that the elves obviously took a closer look at? AG: From a distance lava fields look rather unspectacular – a grey-green-brown area. If you go inside, it becomes almost colorful, lyrical and massive, tender and rough. It is a world that opens up at second glance. It becomes visually perceptible how the lava tongue poured forth from the top of the volcano. The substance and materiality reveals a kind of slowly unfolded time. I came to Iceland with the plan of painting large overflowing informal works, beyond any boundaries. Now, in the lava fields, I had the idea of making something small delicate in these empty spaces of the landscape. I began taking imprints, sending small papers through water. I wanted to keep moving outside and work in the studio later. So began a year-long process and a kind of archiving of lyrical agitations – and the archive still evolves. I guess it was these small papers, 9.5x9.5 cm, from the lava fields that aroused the interest of the elves. KH: At the VALENTINY foundation you show this archive together with large format paintings and tondi, as well as a sound installation. The elves whisper “Gesamtkunstwerk” ... . To what extent do the individual works communicate with one another? What is important to you in the presentation of this ensemble? AG: I exhibit in the spaces of architect François Valentiny, so it's also about architecture. The walls are white, the sequence of rooms dynamic. I use traditional, albeit differently shaped image carriers. Circular, translucent, layer by layer, self-contained paintings communicate with very narrow, long, openly painted “glacier fragments”. The works are shown both as solitaires and as works of art in comparative order. The sound installation introduces the outer world and breaks the neutrality of the space. It is important to me to develop an “art experience” that enables a special form of reflection that feeds on perception and sensation and would not be possible anywhere else.