Transit — The Geometry of Passage: Erla S. Haraldsdóttir

Transit- the Geometry of Passage

 

In Transit, the Geometry of Passage, artist Erla S. Haraldsdóttir's second solo exhibition at Gallery Gudmundsdottir, further develops a site-responsive proposition in her paintings that represent the space itself where her art is exhibited. One of the central works of Transit, the Geometry of Passage, is the oil on canvas triptych The Extended Corner (2025-2026), which takes the Gallery space on Joachim Strasse as its cue. Haraldsdóttir projects the reality of the forms and lines in the central canvas outwards, providing viewers with a double of the space they encounter the paintings within, and showing viewers the possibilities of color.

 

In addition to the meditations on color and light in painting, the artist is also exhibiting drawings on paper. These works, with graphite and gold and silver leaf accents, emphasize the shifting nature of light and its dramatic relationship to color and surface; the smaller-format drawings inform the paintings, and vice versa. Transit invites contemplation, reflection, and more by showing the tension of the artist's vision of the white cube and the white cube itself.

 

This site-responsive mode of painting, which Haraldsdóttir now shows in Berlin, was exhibited for the first time at the close of 2025 at the Wits Origins Centre Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa. That exhibition featured several large-scale paintings that produced an uncanny effect of doubling the space by displaying them within the space they depicted.

 

The majority of the works present a transit of light and color in what is a standard white cube gallery. The artist considers the passage of time to observe, create, and inhabit spaces. Rendered in unconventional colors and hues, the recognizable geometry of modernist architectural form is enhanced and edified.

 

Text by Dr. Craniv Boyd.

Erla S. Haraldsdóttir, born in Iceland 1967, is a multidisciplinary visual artist whose work investigates the boundaries between personal memory, ancestral narrative, and collective myth. Using painting, drawing, printmaking, and collage, she draws on diverse visual languages — combining elements of figurative painting with experimental processes shaped by site, context, and archival material. Her practice frequently explores the transformative potential of colour and light, and the interplay between materiality and storytelling. She has exhibited widely, including at Origin Centre at Wits University (Johannesburg), Moderna Museet (Stockholm), Kalmar Konstmuseum, Berlinische Galerie, Reykjavík Art Museum, Nanning Museum (Guangxi, China), and Turbine Art Fair (Johannesburg). Her work is held in public and private collections, and she has participated in international residencies, including Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin), Cité des Arts (Paris), and the Bag Factory (Johannesburg). She lives and works in Berlin and Johannesburg.