Threads
Anna Líndal’s works contain many threads, both in material and semiological terms. The material threads have assumed various guises. Just over a decade ago they drew fine vertical lines into the space and created a delicate interplay of visual, abstract elements with semiological allusions to feminine traditions. Threads curl in knots around teacups, wrap around soft objects in the creation of sculptures, they are sewn down in embroidery that has been practised for centuries. In corners or out of the floor they burst forth organically like vegetation, twine around columns or appear like bumps on a banister. Colourfully they transform modern technology, electric cables become ornate twists in flagrant contrast to black and grey modern design.
Over the years threads have become Anna Líndal’s handwriting, the material she uses to endow her work with both an inner life and social significance, and not least to create her characteristic visual tension. One guise that the thread takes at the exhibition Cold facts about hot ice cap is as a link for the individual and the microcosm with the gigantic forces of nature and the modern technological age. Presenting the exhibited works in white, like soaring planes reminiscent of aerial photographs of glaciers, underlines the play with sizes and proportions, the inner world of the works and the larger world of the spectator in the space. When the artist sews contour lines into damask she underlines her bonds with the international and Icelandic female handicraft traditions, at the same time as the glacier becomes an abstract form in her hands. Wrapped around electricity cables, multicoloured threads create an independent image, an abstract microcosm within the installation. The spatial location of the threads as an architectural insert activates the totality of the space and draws the spectator into the work.
Ragna Sigurdardottir, January 2007
Translation by Bernard Scudder