Tolli: Nú / Now · Þula Hafnartorg

Everything that happens, happens now.

It cannot happen later or before. All of our reality is always now. The universe of the moment carries the entirety of our being; here lies the beginning and the end of all things. In the legacy of the human spirit, there is a constant pointing toward the present: “Be here and now,” and “Right here and now, nothing is wrong – right here and now, everything is just fine.”

Another insight often shared is this: All our troubles exist either in the past or the future. That is where our mind becomes unbalanced, either in anticipation of what’s to come, or in regret over what has already passed. And so arises restlessness; emotions chasing one another’s tails, forming a storm that entangles our experience of being. Dr. Paul Gilbert, author of Compassionate Therapy, expressed it clearly: “The natural state of the human being is to be out of balance.” This stems from the way our brains are built, how our mind and emotional systems respond to the challenges we face along life’s journey.

In the ink paintings I’m exhibiting in Nú / Now at Þula Hafnartorg, I attempt to touch the present moment with almost a single gesture. I dip the brush in Indian ink, touch the paper, and with a swift motion of the wrist, I draw a pattern across the page as space allows, leaving behind a mark of the moment that is – or was – and let that be enough.

In some works, I take a smaller brush to draw echo lines into the main gesture, extending the tone. Most of the works are titled with the first word or phrase that comes to mind when I look at the result on paper. A response to the impression the moment gives me.

Does the mind travel to the future or the past? My mind’s automatic responses tend to leap into the spectrum of the past or ride a wave toward the future as soon as the moment lands. Only in deep meditation do I occasionally manage to rest in the now. Otherwise, I observe the movement of my thoughts and “try to notice what’s happening as it happens, without judgment.” There is, however, always the chance of a storm in my mind.

These drawings are not attempts at perfection, nor portrayals of a perfect moment, which I don’t believe exists. I’m not trying to mimic a “Zen fingerprint,” but simply bearing witness to my own moment and watching where the mind drifts. Some of the works bear titles, others are left open – leaving space for the viewer to meet the ink with their own experience, and notice where their mind is carried. Most of my paintings come into being this way, the brush gesture leads the process, and moments line up to form a path across the canvas, or in this case, the paper, a channel for emotions and impressions, as the brush draws them forth like water over a field.

Everything that happens, always happens now.

Tolli

Meditative Gestures
written by Daría Sól Andrews

In his latest series of ink on paper paintings in his solo exhibition Nú/Now at Þula Hafnartorg, Tolli offers a turn inward—from the outward gaze of landscape to the inner climate of consciousness. Known for his vibrant depictions of Icelandic nature, Tolli's new works present abstract, black-and-white ink paintings comprised of minimal yet powerful gestural brushstrokes, drawing from a lifelong engagement with mindfulness, the present moment, and contemplative philosophy. But if these works seem minimal at first glance, they carry the weight of existential inquiry.

These new paintings highlight Tolli’s versatility and depth as an artist. There’s a gentleness and honesty in this new work. After years of painting bold, emotional landscapes—charged with colour, story, and memory—he’s moved into something quieter. His recent ink paintings are raw, immediate, uncorrected, made in seconds with the flick of a wrist. Rather than focusing on perfection, Tolli emphasizes presence, process, and gesture as a form of meditation and self-exploration.

These pieces emerge from a place of deep stillness, but also from years of seeking. Tolli has long been drawn to Buddhist philosophy, Tibetan meditation, and breathwork. He’s sat in silence, inside sweat lodges, inside the body’s resistance and release. He’s trained in martial arts, not to fight, but to understand the rhythm between discipline and surrender. These practices show up in the way the ink moves across the paper without hesitation.

In each piece he applies Indian ink directly to paper, allowing the brush to guide his action rather than fitting the mark to a pre-conceived image. Despite the apparent simplicity, the compositions are layered with subtle complexity. Some works feature swift, sweeping lines, while others contain sharper, more contained marks. The spontaneity of the strokes embodies the unpredictability of thought, emphasizing that the present moment is fluid and transient. The lines swirl, spiral, and dart across the page, conveying the restless energy of the mind. They remain open to interpretation, inviting viewers to project their own thoughts onto the work.

For Tolli, this presents a record of impulse, hesitation, memory, and presence. He speaks often of the mind’s tendency to drift—to past mistakes, future fears. These paintings are his way of staying put, of practicing now-ness. There’s no pre-sketching, no overthinking. The paper is blank, the ink is wet, the hand moves—and that’s it. Sometimes he names the drawing with whatever word arrives at the moment. Other times, he leaves it open, letting the viewer find their own meaning.

His process is not meditative in the cliché sense of peace-seeking stillness, but rather about noticing - accepting, acknowledging - the storm of thought. Tolli describes how the mind, almost reflexively, leaps into the past or the future. This is not failure—it is the human condition. In that way, the paintings are deeply compassionate. They hold space for imperfection, for flux, for the impossibility of pure presence. The ink itself becomes a metaphor for consciousness: dark, fluid, staining, unerasable.

In a culture so obsessed with control, image, and speed, Tolli’s works offer the opposite. They are not polished. They are fragments of the present, offered up without shame. He’s spoken about this shift as part of getting older, arriving at a point in life and in his career where he can finally stop taking himself so seriously. There’s more compassion in the work now. Less ego. More love.

He’s also taken this energy into his community. For years, Tolli has worked with men in prisons in Iceland, offering breathwork and meditation as a form of emotional healing. The ink drawings, he says, come from the same place. They’re simple, stripped back, just black and white. But within that simplicity is something vast.

Maybe painting, like meditation, becomes a kind of anchor. A way of catching yourself mid-drift and returning—not to clarity, necessarily, but to contact. To the paper, to the hand, to the breath. It’s not about erasing thought or emotion, but about noticing. Watching where the mind runs, and still choosing to stay with the ink, the wrist, the now. That kind of practice—the discipline of presence—is one of the hardest things we can do. And yet it’s what these works offer: not as resolution, but as evidence of the attempt.

In that way, Tolli’s drawings feel like small offerings of tenderness. Not only toward the viewer, but toward himself. Because maybe, Tolli reminds us, that’s where beauty lives. Not in what’s perfect, but in what’s honest. Not in what lasts forever, but in what appears and disappears, just like the present moment.