Himnari

SOLD

60” x 48”

Oil, acrylic, oil pastel, gouache and graphite on panel

The word “Himnari” loosely translates to “the heavens” in Icelandic*. The painting depicts two iconic Icelandic features: the Blue Lagoon - an expansive manmade “hot spring” that is heated by the geothermal energy from a nearby power plant, and the silhouette of the Harpa Opera House towering over the landscape. The opera house is an architectural landmark designed by Olafur Eliassson, famously constructed to reference the basalt landscapes of Iceland. Perhaps more impressively, the glass façade is designed to capture refracting light in the dim Icelandic seasons, bouncing it around the building in such a way to maximize the lumen-power produced by the meager natural light. Both the lagoon and the opera house are manmade entities that maximize the utility of a natural resource, providing a kind of heavenly afterlife in our human realm for the energy that would otherwise have been lost. The piece is about the hope of solutions, about creative problem solving in the face of climate change. It’s also about the power of beauty in design, and the value of looking to the natural world around us to inform our design choices.