09. júl
Sýnir myndir af vitum landsins á HérnaAlmennt - - Lestrar 242
Mathilde Morant við eitt verka sinna.
Mathilde Morant hefur sett upp sýningu á Gallerí 44 á kaffihúsinu Hérna.
Þar sýnir hún nokkrar eftirprentanir af vatnslita-myndum sem sýna vita landsins.
Mathilde er franskur listamaður og býr í Reykjavík. Hún hefur á undanförnum árum ferðast um landið í sumarfrínu og málað vita.
Hún á einungis eftir að mála þrettán þeirra en myndir hennar má skoða hér.
Mathilde Morant við eitt verka sinna á Hérna.
My name is Mathilde Morant and I am a french artist living in Reykjavík since 2017. I currently work at the national theatre (props department) and my education is stage design for theatre. During my summer holidays I travel all around Iceland in my camperized toyota for the Viti Project.
The idea for that project sparked in the summer 2018 when I bought a road atlas of Iceland and noticed the little stars along the coastline : there were the lighthouses. I thought to myself that if they are on the map I would like to go to all of them, and make a painting each time. It was a crazy idea I decided to try instead of letting it die.
A lot of preparation followed that winter : gathering information about those lighthouses, studying the maps, renovating my car and building a bed inside, etc. and the summer of 2019 was the big departure where I was planning to drive all around iceland for 2 months.
I had never camped for a long time before, I was not an experienced hiker and I did not know very well how to paint with watercolor. It turned out to be one of the most beautiful summers of my life.
That first summer I managed to make 50 paintings, and since then every summer I carry on as the lighthouses are more and more challenging to reach.
I am never sure exactly how many watercolors I will have when I have done all of them but it should be around 130 at the end. Right now I have officially 13 left to paint and they are the most difficult one to reach, most of them on islands.
A few weeks ago me and a friend paddled on a double sit-on-top kayak to Hrollaugseyjarviti on the south coast. We launched from the Jökulsárlón and paddled a total of 23kms. We were not even sure if we could actually land on that rocky island, we just hoped that the metal ladder wedged in the cliff I saw on a picture of the island was still there.
At the end it was there, but the tide was low so we had to climb 1m50 on slippery rocks to reach the ladder. What an adventure ! I believe we were the first people ever reaching and landing on that island on a kayak. We saw whales and dolphins jumping out of the water on the way. Pure magic.
Now that I have been doing this project for many summers I am a totally different person. My watercolor technique has improved so much, I am a strong hiker and I have much more love and confidence in myself.
That project has brought me so much joy and adventures. When it will be finished I would like to have an exhibition with all the paintings for sale and make a book with all the watercolors and a few stories of those adventures.
640.is á Facebook