CIA

As we wrote about in our July issue, the Icelandic painter Eggert Pétursson has been awarded second place in the prestigious Carnegie Award competition. He was in Oslo this month to receive his award in a ceremony at the opening of the award exhibition in the Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter. The exhibition will then tour the Nordic countries.

The award jury published the following staement on selecting Eggert Pétursson to receive a prize in this year's competition:

Eggert Pétursson is awarded the Carnegie prize of SEK 600,000 for his singular display of vegetation at close range, which has been his subject matter for as long as he can remember. Seen at a distance, his paintings seem to be abstractions, but close up they dissolve in endless realistic details of easily identifiable plants and flowers. Regarding himself as a conceptual artist, Pétursson has been able to develop his modest theme in such an extensive and imaginative way that it tends to become limitless in time, space, size and expression.

Eggert Pétursson was born in 1956 in Reykjavik, where he currently lives. Between 1979 and 1981 he attended the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht, after studying at the Icelandic School of Arts and Crafts in 1976-79 and the Reykjavik Art School in 1974-78. Pétursson’s unique flower paintings are like no other depictions of landscapes or vegetation. He himself describes them as “fabricated nature”, and in his works every detail, every stalk, petal and leaf, is meticulously portrayed. The perspectives are vertiginous, not in the normal sense but in the subtle depth he creates with his painstaking and veritably three-dimensional rendering of the Icelandic flora. Eggert Pétursson has been exhibiting his works since the 1970s, mainly in Iceland but also in Europe, the USA and Japan. In Iceland his works are shown at Galleri i8, which will also be exhibiting his paintings at Art Basel Miami in December. Pétursson is represented in several of Iceland’s more prestigious museums and institutions, including the National Gallery of Iceland, the Reykjavik Art Museum and the Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, the Kopavogur Art Museum and other public collections, such as the Landsbanki Islands in Reykjavik. Eggert Pétursson also participated in the Carnegie Art Award 2004 exhibition.