Johanna Thordardottir

b. 1946

Johanna Thordardottir was born in 1946 in Reykjavik. She trained at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts, the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and at the Royal Academy of Stockholm.

Throughout her sculptural practice Thordardottir has worked with a variety of different materials including bronze, steel and plastic. However her most recent focus has been to create work that seeks to explore the boundary, should it exist, that lies between the three dimensional world and our two dimensional perceptions via the medium of wood paper and oil colours.

Johanna continues to work from her studio in Reykjavik, as well lecturing as a professor of fine arts at the University of Iceland.

I had no prior experience working in silver when I was offered the opportunity to participate in Sterling Stuff I. While working on my miniature sculpture in wood the name ‘Bon Voyage’ came up, with reference to unknown travels, a vessel that travels from one island to the next. That wooden mother mould went on its first voyage when I shipped it to Pangolin. The sculpture cast in silver was beautiful and the craftsmanship exceptional. Pangolin has a remarkable relationship with silver, with modern and original executions, amazing mastery of surface and patina.

I’ve worked in a variety of materials, but recently I’ve been focusing on the sculpture on the border of the two- and three dimensional, using wood, paper and oil colours. The approach is abstract with reference to nature where form and colour unite.