Works
Overview
Perpetual Progress
This exhibition emerges from a contradiction: living in one of the safest places in the world while still experiencing a persistent sense of anxiety. Being surrounded by calm and stability, yet carrying an inner restlessness rooted elsewhere.
The paintings are shaped by existential reflection and the phenomenon of “doomscrolling” - the endless stream of negative information we consume daily. The world enters through the screen in a constant flow of notifications about conflict, disaster, and political tension. We become hyper-aware of global politics, of the erosion of privacy, and of the fragility of truth itself.
And yet, we continue. In the name of staying informed, in search of connection, or perhaps as a form of escape. We recognize that this condition feeds on fear while simultaneously offering a sense of proximity and participation.
Within this tension - between safety and threat, distance and closeness, powerlessness and everyday life - a state of perpetual progress takes shape.
To be human is complicated. Life goes on until it doesn’t. In that awareness lies both weight and freedom - and perhaps the work is an attempt to pause, to confront this condition, and to try, as best as possible, to live.
Text by Dýrfinna Benita Basalan
⸻
Dýrfinna Benita Basalan (b. 1992) was born in Reykjavík, Iceland. She graduated from The Gerrit Rietveld Academy with her Bachelor degree in Fine Arts and Design 2018. Dýrfinna has since had an active solo career and is known for her mixed media drawings and sculptures. Her work touches on subjects of society and it’s complexity, the politics of identity and the inner child. Recent exhibitions include Stara, Gerðarsafn (2025), Through Thick and Thin (with Melanie Ubaldo), The Living Art Museum (2025), Total babes, Hafnarborg (2025), Apple of My Eye, Á Milli (2024), and Chronic Pain, Reykjavík Art Museum (2023).
Alongside her solo practice she is part of the artist collective Lucky 3 which she co-founded 2019 with Melanie Ubaldo and Dream, all Icelandic artists with Filipino roots. Together they were awarded the Motivational Art Prize by the Icelandic Art Centre in 2022 for their performance art piece PUTI. Their performance art piece HJÚKRUN featuring Ragnar Kjartansson in 2024 received critical acclaim.
