Artist Kristinn E. Hrafnsson is preoccupied with time. This is not a recent development. And also nearness, as tangible as it is for earth’s rotation on its axis, from east to west. Where the large and the small teeters, along with the straight and the rounded.
But there is the art, Kristinn’s art, but also only his stance and his attitude, because somehow we wake up – and then we fall asleep in a different manner. That’s the framework. Everything happens there, outside and inside, in differently written lines and curves.
And then, the pull of the moon may change what is missing. Since the balance between the reflux and the rising tide is never far off. Perhaps just an unseen star, at a distance.
This way, he starts his work determinedly. With a knowing and patient look. Always taciturn. Slightly stooping. From Ólafsfjörður in the north. Maybe holding his thought in his arms. Hair thinning, adjusting to life. That’s why the sculptor is first and foremost the creator of ideas.
Because the work is drawn by a mind, rather than by hand. Obviously.
This also goes for the hammer and chisel. He keeps both in a portable toolbox, the headquarters of his creative powers. The thinking. There is his studio. And the main characteristic of his work.
As wide as the walls and the ceiling are. The whole sun rising. The whole moon waxing. All skilfully arranged in one and the same spot. The day’s work. The light of the forms. Diligence. Precisely, the speculation, the planning, the result.
Leaving the viewer, no less speculative. Slow. Careful on their feet. Stroking their cheek.
And wondering, doubting and being fascinated at the same time. Haunted by thoughts that travel both clockwise and counter-clockwise, from above and below, from inside and out. Even unconnected in the chaotic time that passes, and most likely, somewhere near.
In the nearness.
Precisely in the nearness of all this time.
All this gone and yet-to-come time.
- -
When the moment arrives
we realise
that we have filled in the future
that originally
was intended
for us.
Sigmundur Ernir Rúnarsson
(the prose and poetry comes from several of the author’s books)
