Hildur ÁsgeirsdÓttir JÓnsson, Artist

2008 MID-CAREER ARTIST WINNER IN VISUAL ARTS

During the past 14 years Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson has created extraordinary series of works of art based upon images of brain scans, celestial objects, and, most frequently, the landscape of Iceland. She works in a variety of forms, including ink drawings and intricate embroideries, but her principal works are paintings upon silk thread that are woven together to create shimmering, indefinite surfaces. As critic and curator Saul Ostrow wrote “an encounter with Jónsson’s open and airy compositions offers up a sense of pleasure and control derived from a precarious balance between opticallity and tacticality.”

Jónsson’s work has been compared, at the same time, to color-field abstractionists such as Morris Lewis, and to the expressive landscapes of early American modernists, such as Arthur Dove. Deliberately, yet spontaneously, they evoke a sense of atmosphere more than place – of intimacy rather than objective portrayal. Steven Litt, in reviewing a recent exhibition in Cleveland, observed that “Jónsson’s images remain tantalizingly out of reach... they communicate an air of unresolved tension and expectation, while seducing the viewer with their soft edges and indistinct imagery.”

Born in Iceland in 1963, the artist’s life has been divided between her native country and northeast Ohio. After an Icelandic childhood, her family moved to the United States for five years while her father, a doctor, advanced his training. Three of those years, from 6th through 8th grade, were spent in Cleveland. After completing her course of study at Reykjavik Junior College, she returned to Ohio in 1983, enrolling at Kent State University with the intent to study architecture. As her emphasis changed to art, she studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art for several years before continuing at Kent, receiving a B.F.A. in 1991 and M.F.A. in 1995. Throughout her career she has primarily lived in the Cleveland area, while spending part of each year in Iceland, where she also has a home.

Hildur Ásgeirsdóttir Jónsson has presented her work in one-person shows in Cleveland; at Scope, New York; at FAVA, Oberlin; and in Akureyri and Reykjavik in Iceland. Notably, her work was celebrated in a one-person exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland in 2005. Widely exhibited locally, her work has also been in group exhibitions in Kyoto, Japan; Belfast, Northern Ireland; Barcelona, Spain; and Paris, France. In the Neo Show, a juried exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2005, her work was selected for purchase by the Museum. In 2004 she was awarded an Indvidual Artist’s Fellowship by the Ohio Arts Council and the same year was commissioned to create works of art to be presented in that year’s Governor’s Awards in the Arts.

Her paintings are in public collections, including the Reykjavik Art Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Ohio Arts Council. Her work can also be found in many corporate and institutional collections, such as the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Progressive Corporation, National City Bank, University Hospitals and Hahn Loeser + Parks. Her work is represented by galleries in Iceland, New York, and Cleveland.