Inner Landscape

"In the late 1980s—and continuing to the present as an important component of her art — Róbertsdóttir began working with cut lava, mostly cuboid chunks arranged into different configurations.” (Volk 2018, 12) Her floor sculptures are derived from finely cut blocks of basaltic rock, then stacked in geometric forms, each unique and emitting a timeless sense of weightlessness almost as if their floating within the given space. I use a special type of porous grey lava rock found in Iceland. It is a basaltic rock filled with cracks and holes, which are caused by gas bubbles being trapped inside the erupted magma as it rapidly solidifies. I have these coarse and imperfect identical columns (each cut reveals a different and unique surface) and then I stack them in a sequence of differently shaped sculptures. In these works, lava is far more than an inert material, its texture and appearance constitute an active power, and in using it I bring the Icelandic outdoors into the work and thus into the exhibition space.

References:
Volk, Gregory: "Thinking with Things: On the Elemental Art of Ragna Róbertsdóttir”. In: Ragna Róbertsdóttir. Works 1984-2017. Berlin 2018. 5-15.