Textiles Prize for
Hrafnhildur Sigurðardóttir
The Icelandic textile artists Hrafnhildur Sigurðardóttir is this year’s recipient of the Nordic Award in Textiles, a prize of some 250,000 Swedish Kroner (26,000 Euros), some thirteen years after first exhibiting in Snegla, an artist-run gallery in Reykjavik.
Hrafnhildur studied at the Reykjavik College of Arts and Crafts in the 1980s and later in Tennessee and Colorado in the United States. Bridging textile art and sculpture, her works take on a variety of shapes and combine formal concerns with more direct – often political – approaches. “The message is just as important to me as the aesthetics,” says Hrafnhildur. “I want to say something in my art, not just create a visual experience.” An avowed feminist, Hrafnhildur keeps women in focus in her art, the roles they play and the images society creates of them.
In recent years, Hrafnhildur has mostly exhibited outside
Iceland and this year her art can be seen in Chicago, Florida, California
and Helsingfors – next year will exhibit in Quito in Equador. She will
be accepting her award in a ceremony at the opening of an exhibition in the
Textile Museum and Culture House in Borås in October.
