Listval
Lilý Erla Adamsdóttir – The Multiplicity in Between
December 2nd 2023 – January 6th 2024
Welcome to the opening of Lilý Erla Adamsdóttir´s exhibition The Multiplicity in Between on Saturday, December 2nd from 3 to 5pm at Listval Gallery, Hverfisgata 4.
Our senses divide the world into different dimensions. Objects have a familiar shape and form. Up and down. North and south. Past and future. Flat and three-dimensional. Beginning and end. But do these dimensions exist within nature itself?
Nature contains a certain multiplicity beyond human awareness, which through analogies we can begin to perceive. Seen from above, glaciers branch like raindrops on a car window. Within our everyday world, forms crystallize and repeat in large and small ways, within the landscapes of river beds and moss.
Yet Lilý Erla is not satisfied with drawing parallels. She compels us to perceive between dimensions and break down the boundaries between the senses – The way a soft texture can imply hard, barren ground. The way colors dissolve into small threads, connecting light and sound.
At the basis of Lilý Erla´s work is thread. Between these threads is a multiplicity that can produce a special light. From there, the approach to the artwork plays a key role. Questions such as where one stands when experiencing the work, whether a photograph is taken – the depths are teeming, and it is there in which the nature of Lilý´s chosen threads lies.
“It’s amazing how much light these small threads can bring to the work”, Lilý Erla explains. She chooses fine threads in different pigments to call upon this effect. The canvas is strung vertically and Lilý Erla wields a Tuft gun powered by a powerful air compressor. Fibers break down when the threads are cut. Dust swirls in the air and noise echoes in the studio. Pressure and noise, the forces of nature at work.
But when a quiet settles into the work, they come to life. How? Stand still and come close to the work, from different sides. Notice in your experience a subtle thread that the eye cannot quite capture. You are about to be drawn into new worlds – into the multiplicity between realms.
Text: Valur Freyr Antonsson
About the artist:
Lilý Erla Adamsdóttir works on the boundaries of art, design and crafts. In her work, she explores handmade repetition, its possibilities and limitations. How the individual is called to the masses while the masses create a unique harmony. Lily’s work process is characterized by a constant conversation with the subject, where one thing leads to another. Recently, she has used the properties of tufting technology to examine the thread and its visual effects, when it comes to the interplay of colors and material properties. Lily speaks either of her works as hairy paintings or dancing embroidery. Lilý Erla Adamsdóttir (b. 1985) completed a BA degree in Fine Art from the Iceland University of the Arts in 2011 and an MA degree in artistic textiles from the School of Textiles in Borås, Sweden in 2017.
