Anna Júlía Fridbjörnsdóttir Iceland, b. 1973

Anna Júlía Friðbjörnsdóttir (b. 1973) is an Icelandic artist whose practice spans sculpture, installation, drawing, video, and text-based media. Through a poetic lens, she explores contemporary and historical themes, weaving together elements of cultural inheritance, language, and perception. Her work is deeply rooted in material inquiry, contrasting hand-made and natural processes with the technical or industrial, and often examining the variability of information and the transformative potential of interpretation.

Friðbjörnsdóttir’s artistic language is shaped by more than two decades of thoughtful experimentation with form, space, and narrative. Her installations often reflect on ecological temporality and the porous boundary between the natural and constructed world. Whether through subtle sculptural gestures or complex mixed-media compositions, she invites viewers into a space where materials act as carriers of both personal and collective meaning.

Educated at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts, London Guildhall University (BA Fine Art), and Manchester Metropolitan University (MA Fine Art), Friðbjörnsdóttir has exhibited widely in Iceland and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Berg Contemporary (Reykjavík) and Gallery Gudmundsdottir (Berlin).

Her work has been presented in major institutional exhibitions, including the Reykjavík Art Museum, National Gallery of Iceland, Gerðarsafn Art Museum and MASP in São Paulo, and at Something Else at the Citadel in Cairo and at the Pavilion Nordico in Buenos Aires. She is the recipient of the Guðmunda Art Prize 2025 and was selected for the Vesturvin public art commission in Reykjavík, 2025. She was nominated for the Icelandic Art Prize in 2018 for her exhibition Serinade at Hafnarborg and was awarded a year-long residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin by the Icelandic Art Center in 2022.

Friðbjörnsdóttir’s works are held in several major public collections, including the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavík Art Museum, and Hafnarborg Centre of Culture and Fine Art. Her practice continues to evolve through site-responsive installations, collaborative projects, and a sustained investigation into the symbolic and sensorial potential of materials. She currently lives and works between Reykjavík and Berlin.