Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields and Tundras
Online Viewing Room
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Jónsson's primary inspiration comes from walking and photographing in the Icelandic landscape during regular trips to her family's cottage. Before finding her way to art, she had thought she might become a medical doctor or a scientist—those were her early fields of study. At heart, she has said, her "interest is all science. Science is life; it's what everything is around us." In fact, the artist's source photographs fall into two distinct typologies: those rooted in the pictorial and those that appear relatively abstract. Thus, some of Jónsson's landscapes start somewhat conventionally, with views familiar from tourist snapshots of Iceland's jaw-dropping waterfalls, lava fields, and melodramatic skyscapes. Her more abstract images, meanwhile, are usually based on close-ups of lichen, flora, rocks, lava, or earth; they show crystalline growths and stochastic, entropic forms. Jónsson's recent interest in refracted light and her use of images taken, for example, by the Hubble Space Telescope straddle these two typologies. However, no matter what type of image Jónsson chooses as her jumping-off point, in the resulting work it is as if her source has been reborn as a buzzing, saturated color bloom.
Jónsson's paintings bear striking formal relationships to the works of many early twentieth-century practitioners of abstraction, who were themselves often motivated by a passion for optics, color theory, and science. This affinity is noticeable in Jónsson's palette: its subtle tones, combined with acid pinks, teals, and mauves that are hard to locate in the natural.
by Cathleen Chaffee - from Infinte Space/Sublime Horizons, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Tundra #10, 2024
silk and dye
26 x 34 inches
(66 x 86.4 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10430)
$8,500
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Tundra #8, 2024
silk and dye
26 x 50 inches
(66 x 127 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10429)
$9,500
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields 9, 2023
silk and dye
45 x 40 inches
(114.3 x 101.6 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10210)
sold
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields #18, 2024
silk and dye
45 x 44 1/2 inches
(114.3 x 113 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10425)
sold
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields 6, 2023
silk and dye
45 x 44 inches
(114.3 x 111.8 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10207)
sold
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields #21, 2024
silk and dye
45 x 88 inches
(114.3 x 223.5 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10426)
sold
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Tundra #11, 2024
silk and dye
26 x 42 1/2 inches
(66 x 108 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10431)
$8,500
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields #23, 2024
silk and dye
45 x 65 inches
(114.3 x 165.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10427)
$16,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Tundra #5, 2024
silk and dye
26 x 41 inches
(66 x 104.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10428)
$8,500
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Various Landscape #14, 2023
silk and dyes
46 3/4 x 50 3/4 inches
(118.7 x 128.9 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10066)
$15,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Various Landscape #15, 2023
silk and dyes
46 3/4 x 59 3/4 inches
(114.3 x 147.3 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10067)
$15,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Various Landscape #12, 2023
silk and dyes
45 x 50 inches
(114.3 x 127 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10065)
$15,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Various Landscape #11, 2023
silk and dyes
45 x 46 inches
(114.3 x 116.8 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10064)
sold
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields 5, 2023
silk and dye
45 x 53.5 inches
(114.3 x 135.9 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10206)
$15,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields 10, 2023
silk and dye
45 x 41 1/2 inches
(114.3 x 105.4 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10211)
$12,500
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Various Landscape #7, 2022
silk and dye
47 x 46 inches
(119.4 x 116.8 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ9812)
$14,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields 7, 2023
silk and dye
45 x 43 inches
(114.3 x 109.2 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10208)
$14,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Lava Fields 8, 2023
silk and dye
45 x 49 inches
(114.3 x 124.5 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10209)
$14,000
In Iceland, Jónsson pursues "the diurnal drama of day-twilight-night-dawn-day." This planetary cycle not only structures our waking and sleeping hours but also regulates our seasons; the length and duration of our time spent with or without sunlight; reproduction within the animal and plant kingdoms; and, as so much scientific research has proven, human moods and emotions. Jónsson keenly observes and records the natural sources of what scientists call "sky brightness." Measured on moonless nights, this natural occurrence differs from what is known as "anthropogenic sky glow"—a fancy term for human-made light pollution, such as the "light domes" that emanate from cities globally (blocking our ability to see stars and confusing flocks of migrating birds). Dan Duriscoe, a scientist with the U.S. National Park Service Night Skies program, offers this description of the sources of sky brightness: "natural airglow, Zodiacal light, integrated starlight or unresolved stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Diffuse galactic light is starlight reflected by interstellar dust." Duriscoe's unselfconsciously poetic list of airglow phenomena is where artistic and scientific observation intersect. Jónsson's work often tempers knowledge with a sense of the sublime, suggesting a sense of seizure—of feeling overwhelmed by the naked beauty of the sky.
by Jenni Sorkin - from Infinte Space/Sublime Horizons, Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #20, 2022
watercolor on paper
9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches
(23.5 x 31.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10442)
$3,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #6, 2022
watercolor on paper
5 x 7 inches
(12.7 x 17.8 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10448)
$1,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #26, 2022
watercolor on paper
9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches
(23.5 x 31.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10438)
$3,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #18, 2022
watercolor on paper
9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches
(23.5 x 31.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10439)
$3,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #38, 2022
watercolor on paper
9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches
(23.5 x 31.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10440)
$3,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #17, 2022
watercolor on paper
9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches
(23.5 x 31.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10441)
$3,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #16, 2022
watercolor on paper
9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches
(23.5 x 31.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10443)
$3,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #43, 2022
watercolor on paper
9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches
(23.5 x 31.1 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10444)
$3,000
Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson
Summer 2022 #5, 2022
watercolor on paper
5 x 7 inches
(12.7 x 17.8 cm)
(Inv. No. HÁ10447)
$1,000