Artist in Focus: Katrín Elvarsdóttir

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  • A Botanical Future

    Katrín Elvarsdóttir Gallery Gudmundsdottir is pleased to present A Botanical Future , the first solo exhibition by Icelandic artist Katrín Elvarsdóttir at the gallery. The exhibition brings together three photographic series created...

  • Your works in A Botanical Future move between reality and fiction. You first trained in photography, then pursued a Bachelor in Fine Arts. How has this dual background shaped the way you approach the photographic image — as both document and artistic material?

    KE: My training in photography has taught me to pay attention to light, form, and small details in my surroundings.

    My background in fine arts gives me the freedom to experiment with form, color, and concept without worrying too much about “accuracy.” I feel like my process starts from the inspiration from what appears in front of the lens, but having said that, my photographs are not a representation of the world but rather an interpretation of it. I interpret reality by selecting what to include or exclude, manipulating light, framing, and timing to reveal a vision that might otherwise go unnoticed.

     

    Your images often begin as photographs but are later manipulated into something more layered and ambiguous. Can you tell us a bit about this process — what happens between the initial shot and the final work?

    KE: I think of that first shot as a kind of foundation or raw material rather than a finished piece. From there, the process becomes more intuitive and layered. I might digitally alter the image, by shifting colors, and playing with contrast and saturation. I’m less interested in documenting what’s there and more in revealing what could be there. I like that space where the image becomes uncertain; where it feels both familiar and strange at the same time. It’s in that ambiguity that I find room for imagination and narrative — in those in-between spaces, the image is no longer bound by what the camera captured; it begins to suggest stories, emotions, or possibilities that weren’t visible in the original scene. That transformation is what draws me in — the moment when a photograph stops being a record of something real and becomes a space for reflection, memory, or even speculation.

     

     

  • You highlight three plants with very different histories — Cherry Blossom, Banana, and Dawn Redwood — yet all carry cultural, historical, and even political weight. How did you become interested in plants as a lens to explore questions of belonging and migration?

    KE: I think my interest in plants happened almost by chance. When I was travelling through Australia and parts of Asia, I started noticing familiar plants in completely unfamiliar contexts — species I had only ever seen as small houseplants were growing wild and enormous in their native environments. It was both disorienting and beautiful. Seeing them thriving on such a different scale made me rethink my relationship to them: these weren’t just decorative objects or bits of greenery, but living beings with their own histories and geographies. That experience stayed with me. It made me curious about how plants move, adapt, and change meaning depending on where they grow — how something so ordinary in one place can become exotic, symbolic, or even political in another.

     

    Looking ahead, what do you hope viewers will take away from A Botanical Future? Is there a particular reflection, feeling, or dialogue you hope these works will spark?

    KE: I hope viewers of A Botanical Future are drawn into the stories behind the plants, and come to see nature not as something separate from us, but as something we are deeply and inherently connected to physically and emotionally.

     

    In contemporary art, there’s a growing return to ecological and post-human perspectives. Do you see your work in dialogue with these broader artistic conversations, and are there particular artists, thinkers, or movements that resonate with your approach?

     KE: Photography isn’t just about capturing an image—it’s about engaging with the materiality of the subject. I do see my work in dialogue with the broader return to ecological and post-human perspectives in contemporary art, but for me, those ideas are rooted in personal travels. My inspiration also comes from observing how other artists use different materials to shape their work. I look for methods to highlight the stories and histories embedded in these plants and to reflect their movement and transformation. A plant that feels completely ordinary in one place might be seen as exotic, symbolic, or even politically charged in another. This dialogue with material practices, beyond photography, keeps challenging my creative process.

     

     

  • Gallery Gudmundsdottir is pleased to announce A Botanical Future, a solo exhibition by Katrín Elvarsdóttir on view from 24. October through 6. December.

     

     

    In A Botanical Future, Elvarsdóttir turns her gaze toward three plant species that have traveled across continents and epochs — the Japanese Cherry blossom, the banana plant, and the dawn redwood. Each carries a layered history of cultivation, adaptation, and human intervention that extends far beyond its botanical identity. Through the photographic series Fifty Plants for Peace, Tropical Colony, and Living Fossil, Elvarsdóttir reimagines these species as witnesses to displacement and survival. Her camera becomes a tool of transformation rather than documentation, revealing how nature and culture continuously shape one another. Suspended between reality and fiction, her images explore what it means to be uprooted, to take hold in new soil, and to form belonging anew — suggesting that every act of preservation carries within it a gesture of transformation.


    Interview: Lea Baur wilhjelm