Residency

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REYNISFJARA

Reynisfjara in southern Iceland is a good 3-hour drive from Hafnaborg Arts and Culture Centre. I visited the beach last year and really wanted to return this time but much later in the day when the daytrippers had left.

According to people that I have met on the route, Iceland has experienced one of its harshest winters, and so this time the snow lay heavy on the ground, creating an organic version of Bridget Riley stripes on the shore.

White snow, black sand, white surf, black sea.

It’s so hard to creatively capture the magnificence and humbling nature of the landscape without it looking feeble. Nothing can prepare you for the sheer power of nature in this place. I did, however, create some performance paintings on the beach, allowing stones and sand to fall at random onto my canvas. I’ve also made extensive notes on colours and textures to refer back to when I return to the studio next week.

SKAFTAFELLSJÖKULL GLACIER

Iceland has been a place I have been keen to visit for decades, and last year, I visited for the first time and spent a few days in Reykjavik, to see some costumes that I had created for Follow The Viking Project. During that visit, however, I didn’t have the time to travel and see the drama of the south coast.

This time around, I am seeing more of the country. The journey to the Skaftefel National Park really showcases the spectacle of nature; 80 miles of flat ice plains that look more like the surface of the moon than anything on earth. Bumps, lumps, drifts and pimpled landscapes stretch as far as the eye can see. It seems to take hours to get across and the mountains in the distance never seem to get any closer as we carefully drive over the Sandar; the glacial outwash plains south of Vatnajökull. The snow sprints across the road like dry ice and the road shrinks and expands with the weather. Singletrack bridges cross the meandering ice-packed rivers creating the most iridescent, light-reflecting mirrors.

The Skaftafellsjökull Glacier is in the Skaftefel National Park on the edge of the mighty Vatnajökull, Iceland’s largest Volcano. When you first catch a glimpse, nothing can prepare you for the mesmerising, gargantuan, menacing atmosphere that these silent, slow-moving mountains of ice instill.

All I could do, in all honesty, was to cry.

Frozen tears stuck to my eyelashes.

I feel so humbled and privileged by my visit.

As a side note, I am a self-confessed scaredy-cat. But this trip is taking me to a different level of terrified. As a traveler in Iceland, you have to do as the Icelanders do and keep an eye always on Vedur – the country’s weather, volcano and earthquake service. I’ll just rewrite that line… the country’s weather, Volcano and Earthquake service!

Everything here is so HUGE and we are all so small!.

JÖKULSÁRLÓN GLACIER.

After a very windy night at a hotel, we drove further around the south coast – the forecast wasn’t good and the threat of road closures later in the afternoon forced an early start. Whatever the weather in Iceland, travelling is exhausting- if it’s not snowing and the roads are clear, you have to rest, because the white landscape is so dazzling that your eyes get incredibly tired. Taking regular breaks is vital, and the ring road has lots of picnic spots to take a breather. About an hour after leaving the hotel we pulled into what at first glance looked like a typical snowy spot. As I sipped my tea I noticed a few footsteps to the right that led around the side of what can only be described as a snow dune. So, I followed them. After about a 15-minute climb I found myself looking out over a vast expanse of frozen water, scattered with thousands of icebergs and in the distance the vast Jökulsárlón Glacier. The previous glacier at Skaftafellsjökull was graceful and stately – this one was menacing in its scale; a very beautiful monster. The glacial lagoon sits on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, and the tides roll in and out of the estuary carrying large fragments of the icebergs out to sea. The black sand and the ice being dragged out by the tide is one of the most incredible sites I have ever seen. Icelanders call the coastline Diamond Beach, because the ice, some well over 1000 years old, sparkles along the black velvety shore. The weather was on the turn when we got to the beach, but I spent a good hour drawing the ice in the sea. My hands were frozen to the bone when I finally got in the car, and the sketchbook wet through, but the water marks added to the mark-making, which was interesting. It was seeing all this and driving across the 80km Sandar, the day before, that put the nature of the glacier into perspective. In 1994 one of the smaller glaciers had been destroyed after a volcanic eruption, causing 50,000 square meters of floodwater per second to rush out across the Sandar plain. Bridges were ripped from their moorings and huge sections of the glacier were turned into steam and flood water. The landscape here is mind-blowing. The sheer magnitude and power of nature makes me feel very uneasy. The weather can change within minutes. Bright blue skies and clear roads are consumed by fierce grey clouds, blizzards and snowfall so heavy that the yellow markers at the side of the road are the only way to keep safe. Guide books suggest that a trip can take anything from 4.5 hours to 11 hours depending on the weather, and you can’t plan your days. The weather here determines everything. You can drive for hours across flat glacial plains. Mountains that look 30 minutes away, take 5 hours to reach. Glaciers, invisible one minute under flat white light reveal themselves in the sunlight – and they are enormous. They sit quietly on top of the land of boiling magma and moving plates. The tenuous nature of the landscape puts life into perspective. The Icelandic people live in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, but I do wonder what it takes to live here.

SKÓGAFOSS WATERFALL

After being completely snowed in at an apartment in Reynisfjara, relying on a JCB to dig us out, we decided that it would be wise to make a move from the South as soon as we could see the markers on the side of the road. The mountains, sea and shore had disappeared under a flat white blanket of snow. Our hire car, a VW Polo was well and truly stuck and even the 4-Wheel Drives looked to be struggling in the heavy snowfall. The winter tyres here are a lifesaver; the small metal studs keeping us gripped to the ice. I couldn’t stand up and had to wear crampons to get to the car. The bad weather had been following us for 5 days, but up until this morning, we had managed to outrun it!

The 5km drive down onto the flatter coastal terrain was a nail biter; even the trucks with super-sized tyres were driving with extreme caution. My heart was in my mouth as we carefully picked our way using the yellow markers like a dot-to-dot puzzle. Staying put would have meant an extra 2 days in a hotel and a missed flight for my partner. Route 1, the main road that circumnavigates the island, is often closed in the worst weather and we needed to get off the mountain and back down to sea level before the road was cordoned off for the day.

After about an hour, the weather cleared enough to be able to breathe out and we fell into a line of slow-moving vehicles. As we rounded another huge premonitory we saw a sign to the Skógafoss waterfall. The road was iced over, but the faithful yellow markers kept us on the track as we wound our way through a small hamlet, full of red and white tin-clad buildings. The snow was falling heavily and the fall was framed by undulating icicles. I grabbed my sketchbook and walked as far as I could to appreciate the magnitude of the fall.

The spray soaked me within seconds, and my goggles needed wipers to keep clear. Capturing falling water in pencil and charcoal is bloody difficult, but I got lots of pictures and intend to use them for new work when back in the studio.

We had hoped to see Gullfoss and the geysers, but the road was closed and not due to open for a couple of days because of avalanche warnings – so maybe I will do this later in the month when the weather is better.

This first week in Iceland has been one of the best weeks of my entire life.

Here are a few words that describe my emotional reaction to this marvelous country.

Massive, menacing, terrifying, inspiring, freezing, soaking, nail-biting, aggressive, peaceful, ominous, changeable, angry, breath-taking, majestic, ambitious, destructive, powerful, confusing and above all, humbling.

AÐ LEGGJA HÖFUÐIÐ Í BLEYTI

So, my partner left on Tuesday after a week of exploring and I am now alone at the Residency in the very handsome harbour town of Hafnarfjordur. The sky this morning is a crisp blue, and there is still a lot of snow on the ground, but it does feel warmer here next to the coast. The town is full of tin-clad houses and beautiful straight lines that are softened by the snowdrifts. There are greenhouses in the gardens that remain illuminated all night – it’s hard to imagine being able to grow vegetables in this temperature, but the geothermal heating here is bordering on tropical!

I’ve spent the 3 days drawing and I’ve started to work in acrylic. Struggling with it a little, as I find it too quick to dry and very flat, but I’m using lots of water which encourages the paint to behave in a more organic way, which I like. I packed some oils – but I think the drying times and transport at the end of the residency could be problematic. We’ll see how I get on. It is good to work with unfamiliar materials in an unfamiliar environment though – having the chance to just make mistakes and explore a new way of working is very liberating.

There is an old Icelandic saying

To lay your head in the water

Að leggja höfuðið í bleyti

It means to take some time to think about something, maybe to find a new way to do things.

So that’s exactly what I’m doing!

A PALPABLE SENSE OF DISQUIET

The weather has been changeable, skies shifting from bright blue to lilac, pink and then heavy rice-pudding white. Snow falls overnight at the Arts Centre but thaws in the Spring sun. It’s still hovering around zero degrees with a biting wind.

I had hoped to produce work here at the centre, that I would consider finished, but it’s not working out that way at all. I’ve never had to work in a studio space outside of my own- and getting used to it is quite difficult.

I have come to realise over the last two weeks that I am a messy painter. I rely on the organic behaviour of paint and restricting the way that I can work is frustrating, so I’ve retreated to making drawings, collage and colour studies of the actual landscapes. Having the time to focus and look carefully again is precious; being able to concentrate and think about my practice, without the deadlines that I have at home, will eventually be beneficial for sure. I’ve been mixing paints to create the myriad subtleties of the tone and shade that you find here, something that I haven’t done for years. As a person who is a little nervous of colour it’s proving to be very useful. I’m also spending lots of time working in charcoal and graphite sticks on natural canvas; using natural materials also seems appropriate in a place that is so elemental.

I think spending the first week travelling and taking 100’s of photographs will be the foundation of a new body of work. I am fascinated by this country, its precarious nature of fire and ice. I’ve been researching ice in all its forms this last week, both terrestrial and astronomical. The images from NASA of Triton are so beautiful, and the photographs so like the landscape formations that I have seen here.

This macro-micro notion has kept me busy for hours.

The virus has cast a shadow over my time here. I suppose primarily because I am away from my family – who are obviously concerned about the situation and its escalation. But I am in complete isolation here – relying on the BBC to keep me up to date with developments. All I see are stripped supermarket shelves, general panic and mixed advice at home. I may have to cut the residency short – which is upsetting, but every day I see countries closing their borders and movement restrictions enforced. It leaves me with a palpable sense of disquiet.

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Shiran Zaray-Mizrahi