Creatures of Devotion
Sculpture series. 2013
The sculpture series Creatures of Devotion was made for the exhibition Between the Late and Early at the Royal Scottish Academy in 2013. In this series of sculptures Friðriksdóttir created nine sculpted pieces based on the Voodoo tradition, but instead of looking towards the African aesthetic, she focussed on making them Icelandic by using material typical to her native country. In Friðriksdóttir’s world, it is impossible to separate any one element from the others – the simplest sketch could be the starting point for a technically elaborate, beautifully shot film; a fragment of writing could be elaborated into a cycle of performances; and a story briefly hinted at in one piece could become an entire installation later on. She blurs the lines between the occult and natural worlds to create dream-like environments for viewers to explore and find connections within.
Artist's Bio:
Gabríela Friðriksdóttir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1971. Working between video, sculpture, drawing, performance, painting and writing, she has created unique bodies of work in contemporary art. She creates fictional cosmologies rooted in her country’s isolating, melancholic landscape, where stories of creation come together with surrealism, horror films and even heavy metal. Her work is intense and disturbing, but it is also punctuated by moments of real warmth and humour. Over the past decade, Friðriksdóttir’s work has been shown all over the world. In 2005 she represented Iceland at the Venice Biennale.