The light wasn’t good and my photographs are dull but I hope they give some idea of our visit to the sculpture park first thing one morning on our visit there. It didn’t get light until nearly ten o’clock, but it was a strange and mysterious not-light. We didn’t have long enough here – that is the problem when you are on an organised trip; we could have walked back there from hour hotel, but somehow we just didn’t have time.
Asmundur Sveinsson was a sculptor and artist born in 1893 and in what was his home and studio which he designed himself, is now the museum dedicated to him and to his art and work. We were only able to go round the garden but there were about thirty of his works displayed for us to see.
Asmundur was born in west Iceland but he went to college in Reykjavik and then travelled to France to study there. His first works were of the human form, people doing ordinary things like carrying water or washing clothes, ordinary things but ennobled by Asmundur’s work. He returned to Iceland and his art became more abstract, moving away from total representation of human form, but still capturing the energy and movement of figures engaged in different activities – often struggles with others or with creatures, stories from the Icelandic myths and legends.
I loved his work and really want to return to see it again and spend longer looking at it. I loved the space within the work, it reminded me of some of the Buddhist texts I have read where it is what is between that sometimes counts more than what surrounds.
Lois Elsden 