Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Asgerdur Arnardottir. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Asgerdur, appreciate you joining us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Right after high school/college (not sure which one to call it in English because that was back in Iceland and we have a different school system, to be clearer: I was 19 years old.) I immediatly knew I wanted to apply for art school, there was no question about it. Ever since, I have been devoted to my art practice and not looked back. I’ve explored various mediums like painting, drawing, installation, sculpture, welding, digital printing, performance, sound and poetry. I’ve always been interested in anything creative since I remember. When I was a kid I loved to draw but I dreamt about being a performer/singer-songwriter and a fashion designer, now I feel like I dance on the intersections of all them all as I now try to combine performative aspects into my visual art works. Currently my focus is on textile works whilst expanding the written language and merging it with bodily practices. I also practice dancing on the site.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up in Reykjavík, Iceland and in 2021 I moved to California to study art at California Institute of the Arts. I’m starting to notice how much the nature and vast landscape in Iceland has affected my art works throughout the last years here – I remember I had a teacher at CalArts that visited my studio one day in 2023, and they recently had been travelling in Iceland, they immediately notice how similar my works where to Icelandic nature. And they were not wrong! But, It was never intentional so ever since Ive been interested in how nature can affect us without us knowing. I guess I have been more homesick than I thought living abroad and away from Iceland; my works where starting to look more and more like the nature there.

I’m mainly passionate about how we connect our bodies to matter around us and the idea that there is vibrancy and harmony in everything. I aim into the experiential of the work, whether it’s a still object I make or if it’s a performance. It’s all about the experience and bodily reactions for me. I hope to continue my journey of exploring our body’s potential in dialogue with matter.

I’ve realized finding your voice is such a slow and tedious process but that’s why I’m here. After over a decade of continuous art making I see how much I’ve grown, and from now on I can’t really stop because I have seen how every single art piece I make is a stepping stone for upcoming works. We are learning so much more every second than that we know of. Through my mentors, colleagues and friends over the last few years, I also have learned a ton. They have shifted my art practice and opened my mind to my own potential. Being in a community with various artists has helped a lot, it is crucial for artist improvement and duration to feel supported and exposed to other people’s creative process and voices. What I have learned is that creativity can be taught, and should be shared. We’re all here to evoke each other and this goes with everything else in life. Inspiration and desire is the root of our willingness to keep on going and I think creativity and critical thinking goes hand in hand, and, in my opinion, critical thinking is a crucial part of creativity and also our existence and goals for a better collective.

I have a ritual for myself everytime I work on a new piece or an idea, I first start to work with my body very impulsively, I listen to my inner desires and don’t rationalize or analyze why I’m doing it. Then, I take a step back and ask myself questions why I want to do it, how I am going to do it and what are the most important things about the piece and who is gonna see it. That is me trying to incorporate the mind/spirit connection in my practice. I sit down and breathe, I dance, do yoga, find ways to connect to all parts of my body. The skills I think are most essential, for me, is finding my own strengths and trying to strengthen them. The obstacles that stood sometimes in my way of learning more were I thought I had to understand everything that was taught to me in order to speak about it, otherwise I would be scared to open myself up to it. There is this notion of thinking you have to be a master and I hope and feel that those mindsets are shifting to a healthier place, because to me it is not sustainable and creates a culture driven by fear. Let’s make mistakes and be raw. I have accepted that none of us are going to understand every subject 100% that are taught to us and that mindset goes a long way – It affects every area of your life.

I think, as an artist, the skills that are most essential is understanding the audience and taking notice of how you impact others. The skill is also to be sure of what your message is but also to create pieces that can be interpreted in various, holistic full-circle and fruitful ways.
Finding the illiteracy and abstraction in the strong voice and making sure it doesn’t lose the meaning, that’s definitely a skill worth having as an artist, in my opinion.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My art practice tends to be very impulsive. Sometimes I feel like I can’t work on my projects unless it’s done from an impulsive, emotionally loaded and passionate place. That can sometimes make me fearful of how I am delivering my message, I have been constantly afraid of saying the wrong thing. I’ve been trying to tap into where that fear comes from. Is a part of it perhaps some form of self-censorship impacted by our society, that I need to let go of? I think fear of saying the wrong thing has held me back a lot, and this is why I still hesitate working with text, because words are so powerful. I aim to incorporate in my art practice a method that I incorporate into my everyday life, which is trying to find if my passion/message comes from deep radical caring for what’s right and what I believe in and if it does, I must stop questioning what I’m working and quit the hesitant tendency of mine. Hesitation and playing it safe, I think can cause more harm than impulsive passionate actions about a message we want to deliver. But it does all depend on its context. I aim to break out of that fear almost completely.

Interconnectedness between things is something I never cease to ignore. I want to bring things in a new context and as of now I am focusing on textile works, but they could all live in different settings and be different things, depending on their context. They could be clothing, sculptures, accessories, props – anything the body can think of. I’m mainly interested in how the body reacts to a physical object and plays with it. The idea of any entities placed in a physical space making us aware of our body is something that drives my practice. Objects come to live. When I install my sculptures, I take into consideration and am very intentional about the spatial placement of my works – it all affects our viewing of the art works. And oftentimes, I invite interaction with my pieces.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The lesson I had to unlearn is not to be in a hurry and think slower. And answer all of my ideas with why? How? And when? Whilst creating. I’ve also had to learn to take more ownership over how my audience sees my work. I used to be more mindless about it and “leave it up for the audience to interpret it in their own way” but then years flew by and I started to ask myself: but, what do I really want to say?

People will see the intention behind the artwork, even though they are not necessarily aware that they are seeing it. What I have learned is seeing spirit in static objects, seeing the remains of the hand, the energy, it’s all still there. It all remains. That is what drives me the most in my art making. What I have learned is to put care into everything, even the matter around me. It is almost as if my art practice has created its own faith within me, it has made me believe in our capacities to inspire others for a better and more thriving world.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.asaarnar.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/asa__arnar. www.instagram.com/pillows___by_asa/

Image Credits
Photo cred: Zoe Moon