In the Undergrowth

28.06.—10.08.2025

“In the Undergrowth traces our entanglements with land, sea, forest, plant life and the quiet vitality of what often lies beneath notice. It listens for ways of relating to the world—particularly to the textures and temporalities of undergrowth—that are grounded in lived experience, cultural memory and embodied ways of knowing.”

“Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir’s works bring together materials charged with symbolic and geological depth—crude oil, silk, plastic, plexiglass, copper, mineral pigments and photograph trace ephemeral moments of transformation. In Dopamin (2024) chemical and emotional states are abstracted into layered fields of color and texture, offering a visual reflection on reward, dependency, and desire. Spell and Specter (2025) capture fleeting moments of light as alchemical and elusive as its title suggests, pointing to the porous boundary between perception and illusion. Together with sculptural elements—where crude oil, the fossilized residue of ancient life, is hovering — these works create a sensorial web. They recall extraction, longing and the hidden infrastructures of everyday life, where materials once buried in deep time surface as fuel, pigment, image and metaphor. Here, even the most refined aesthetic experience carries the weight of entanglement — with systems of power, environmental devastation and the fragile conditions of being.”

Excerpts from the exhibition text written by Becky Forsythe and Þórhildur Tinna Sigurðardóttir.

Artists

Alanis Obomsawin (Abenaki, US/CA), Edda Karólína Ævarsdóttir (IS), Eva Ísleifs (IS), Gústav Geir Bollason (IS), Hallgerður Hallgrímsdóttir (IS), Nancy Holt (US), Ragna Róbertsdóttir (IS), Regn Evu (IS), Sigrún Hrólfsdóttir (IS), Sigurður Guðmundsson (IS), Tuija Hansen (CA), Vikram Pradhan (IN/IS), Wiola Ujazdowska (PL/IS)

Curated by

Becky Forsythe & Þórhildur Tinna Sigurðardóttir

In collaboration with

Sigurður Guðmundsson, Artist and founder ARS LONGA

Þór Vigfússon, Artist and founder ARS LONGA

ARS LONGA

Contemporary Art Museum

Djúpivogur, Iceland

arslonga.is