Ísar Svan
Ísar Svan grew up in a place with more mountains than houses, surrounded by glaciers, glacier rivers and mountain ranges. Born in 1999 and now based in Reykjavík, he is primarily a painter, with drawing and video as part of his practice too.
That landscape is the starting point for all of his work. He describes it as a force that demands closeness and respect. “I don’t think about the landscape, I think because of it,” he writes.
Svan uses no photographs or reference images. He compares his memory of the landscape to a well that is full again every time he goes back to it.
While he is at the canvas, small scenes come to him that he calls “pockets.” A pocket can be the edge of a cliff, straw on top of a hill or a patch of dirt. It can also be a glimmer of light, a sound or a moment in another artist’s work. Some pockets come from his childhood, and others from places he has been since. Over the years, the old ones have changed too.
