• CV

• See past exhibition Creative Responses and What We Did Yesterday

Thordis Adalsteinsdottir creates surreal and emotionally charged scenes through painting, drawing and sculpture, where human, animal and plant life exist side by side. Her distinctive visual world is populated by anthropomorphic animals, disconnected human figures and familiar objects from everyday life, which are placed in unexpected and often absurd situations. Questions surrounding environmental change, consumerism, technology and our growing dependence on digital life. Animals frequently take on human roles, while people appear passive, disconnected or uncertain, creating a subtle reversal that challenges familiar ideas about our position in nature. With a playful and cartoon-like appearance, her works reveal a darker undercurrent of anxiety, vulnerability and melancholic humour.

Out of flat planes and shapes comes vivid color that punctuates the existential narrative. Within these carefully constructed scenes, spontaneous gestures and expressive marks retain a sense of rawness. The contrast between the apparent simplicity of her imagery and the more unsettling subjects beneath the surface gives Adalsteinsdottir’s work its distinctive character: eccentric, humorous and visually playful, yet simultaneously strange, poignant and quietly disturbing.

See examples of available works from Thordis Adalsteinsdottir