Gunnar Örn

In a review published in Information, critic Jacob Lillemose discussed Gunnar Örn’s second major solo exhibition at Stalke Galleri, emphasizing the artist’s sustained engagement with nature as both subject and method. Lillemose framed Örn’s practice within a broader Icelandic art-historical context, noting how the legacy of figures such as Jóhannes S. Kjarval continued to inform Örn’s work, particularly in its dialogue between landscape, myth, and personal expression.

According to Lillemose, Örn’s paintings did not depict nature as a backdrop for civilization, but rather as an autonomous force—marked by vegetation, rock formations, and shifting geological structures. Several works combined landscape elements with mythological or human figures, creating compositions that oscillated between abstraction and figuration. Lillemose highlighted how these images conveyed an almost psychological intensity, suggesting that nature in Örn’s work functioned as a reflection of inner states as much as external reality.

The exhibition title underscored what Lillemose described as a continuing dialogue with nature—one that was neither nostalgic nor purely symbolic, but instead exploratory and open-ended. He noted that Örn’s move toward watercolor in this body of work introduced a new sensitivity and immediacy, allowing forms to emerge more fluidly and reinforcing the sense of nature as something living, unstable, and personal.

Lillemose concluded that the exhibition demonstrated a clear development in Örn’s practice, presenting nature not as something to be mastered or represented from a distance, but as a space of identification, transformation, and ongoing inquiry.

Gunnar Örn’s 2000 exhibition at Galleri Stalke

View Gunner Örn exhibitions history at Stalke Galleri

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