Ragnar Kjartansson: Repent & Fire

Repent

This suite of twenty-five etchings is a collection of self-contained vignettes. Often combining image and text, these works depict poetic, comical, and sometimes absurd scenes. Kjartansson collects scribbles and words in a notebook that he carries with him wherever he goes. In these etchings, he transcribes the carefree, spontaneous spirit of his sketches into permanent traces on copper; these are personal moments transferred into the medium of the multiple.

Fire

These seven large-scale woodcuts depict graphic, bordering on cliché images of flames in bright red and yellow against a stark black background. The subject of fire — a universal symbol for the paradox of destruction and creation — threads through Kjartansson’s work. His fascination with flames stems from his childhood: "As a child, I loved to draw flames. I would draw houses and then put them on fire, drawing flames in the windows. One could say that early on it was evident that I was either a psychopath or a romantic."