“The noblest kind of beauty […] is the one that enters us slowly, almost unnoticed, and carries itself away with us. One day, we find it again in a dream—but in the end, after dwelling humbly in our hearts for a long time, it completely takes hold of us, filling our eyes with tears and our hearts with longing.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, Part IV
These reflections take shape in four images, arranged in two diptychs.
In each diptych, one image represents a constructed landscape - because every photograph is always a restitution, a construction of a point of view on the world.
The other image is concealed beneath a silver film, a surface that becomes a metaphor for the dream.
At the center of the installation, beneath the silver square, stands a pedestal with an Icelandic coin hanging from a yellow string. Next to it, the quote presented at the beginning.
In each diptych, one image represents a constructed landscape - because every photograph is always a restitution, a construction of a point of view on the world.
The other image is concealed beneath a silver film, a surface that becomes a metaphor for the dream.
At the center of the installation, beneath the silver square, stands a pedestal with an Icelandic coin hanging from a yellow string. Next to it, the quote presented at the beginning.
Using the coin, viewers can scratch the silver film covering the image, thus making the transition from dream to perception. This is what I call a perceptive landscape: the more we scratch the surface, the more the image is revealed—blurred, made of lights, shadows, and color stains, just like when we open our eyes in the early morning.
If the act of revealing remains incomplete, the viewer’s intervention gives rise to a new, unique artwork: the unfinished unveiling of the photograph underneath becomes its own landscape—a personal, intimate balance between concealment and revelation.
By fully revealing the image, we move from perception to what we commonly call “reality,” symbolically represented by the adjacent photograph. Yet every revelation comes at a price: the loss of the dream, the distancing from pure sensoriality, and at the same time, the responsibility of constructing the world we inhabit. This price is symbolized by the coin. The work ultimately confronts us with a simple yet essential question: Are we still capable of wonder?
YEAR 2025
EXHIBITIONS BAER ART CENTER (ICELAND)
TECHNIQUE INTERACTIVE INSTALLATION CONSISTING OF PHOTOGRAPHS PRINTED ON FINE ART PAPER, SILVER SCRATCH FILM, A PEDESTAL, STRING, AND AN ICELANDIC COIN.