Unreconciled Passion, Art and the Confrontation of Grief
Gallery Spaces | 1992-01-17 - 1992-02-14

Exhibiting artists: Barrett Brown, Daniel Rothenfeld, Martha Marr, Peggy Kwong-Gordon, Marty J. Kalb, Gudrun Tryggvadottir.

Text on Guðrúns' work in catalogue:

“Gudrun Tryggvadottir, an Icelander, lives in Cleveland with her husband and 3-year-old daughter. Her work is evidence, clues to complex that bases upon her structure of personal identity. It is informed by the alienation of the unrepentant expatriate in America and by alienation and continuity of generations.

There is something in America that is not kind to permanent residents that refuse to absorb the identity of being American and, perhaps, there is something even unkinder about the attitude of people in Cleveland toward residents who refuse to absorb the identity of being a Clevelander. Gudrun Tryggvadottir's identity as first an artist, or an artist of the world, or as an Icelandic artist, meets with cool response.

Iceland is a saliant of Nordic culture. Icelanders are descended from Vikings that settled there in the tenth century, during a period of global warming. Literary enthusiasm in the following centuries created the sagas, a cultural treasure that intermixes history with Christian and traditional belief. A „small ice age“ followed, and life presented increasing challenge. Iceland's rugged environment and physical isolation created an identity that is guarded and honored.

The birth of her child was an act that established the artist firmly within the continuity of generations, as part of a national identity, and concurrently reinvigorated the memory of her own, sometimes difficult childhood. Her painting takes as issue the child that never felt fully acceptable as a child, facing her own child. And seeking in both child and in internal combat, consolation and redemption in national memory.“

Willima Busta.

Guðrúns' work God and me is printed in b/w in catalogue along with the text above.