Wolf At The Gate

The Art Museum of Reykjanesbær opens the exhibition Wolf At The Gate, November 11th at 2 pm. The artist Úlfur Karlsson, is born in 1988 and is among the most noticeable painters of his generation. His work is a colorful and intense reflection on the human life in an abstract-epxpressional spirit. Úlfur has exhibited his work in many places, both in Iceland and abroad such as in Hilger, the famous gallery in Austria.

Karlsson calls his present exhibition The Fence, referring primarily to the proximity of the Reykjanes Museum to the metal fence which for decades enclosed the large American Naval Base on the outskirts of the fishing village of Keflavik. This fence became the dividing line between Icelandic culture and U.S. cultural products, the point at which Icelandic Sagas rubbed up against Marvel Comics, where traditional Icelandic ballads met Rock ‘n Roll and sheep‘s heads were supplanted by Hershey‘s chocolates. But Karlsson‘show is also about fences  in the abstract, the barriers between the microcosmic and the macrocosmic, islands and continents, the local and the international, the known and the unknown. In its individual fashion, and with great intensity, it tends to confirm Erró‘s conclution that neither fence holds up anymore. A butterfly in the Far East flutters its wings and a cyclone is created on the other side of the planet. The violance and upheavals that occur out in the wide world become a part of our reality in an instant, thanks to the mobile phone app.

Karlsson‘s work are engaged in colorful encounters or collusions that take unexpected turns. The dividing line – the gate – between reality and fantasy is usually unclear. The action is brought to a close, but never resolved. We are left with a number of questions and conundrums to ponder, long after the pictures have left us.

The exhibition will be open until  January 14th.