Anna Joelsdottir

Email: adottir@msn.com
Website: http://www.annajoelsdottir.com

I was born in Iceland where I received my B.Ed., got involved in school reform and taught children and teachers. Later, in search for better answers I moved to England to study for an MA in Educational Research. My focus and interest was on the role of silence in dialogue. When I moved to Chicago, I began to study art just to see what that would be like and in the meantime thought I would figure out how I could function in this society. Art took over. I received my MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and became an artist.

Interview

Anna Joelsdottir’s ArtStyle Blog interview by Amy Rudberg was published in May, 2007.

Gallery / Exhibitions

Upcoming Exhibition:
Solo booth with STUX Gallery, New York, in NEXT, the Invitational Exhibition of Emerging Art, April 24th–28th, 2008, held at the Merchandise Mart. http://www.nextartfair.com

Artist Statement

I grew up in Iceland without the influence of mass media. I was twenty years old when I saw television for the first time. To feed my mind I read books, any book I could lay my hands on. There was one radio station. It was a good station. It had everything: novels, the world news, plays, poetry, Sunday sermons, music, concerts, all taken in by the ear. By reading books and listening to the radio, you got into the habit of making up your own visuals. Every voice, every story, every place or sound I heard or read about had an image created in my head. Did that give me as distorted a view of the world as today’s media does? It was distorted, for sure. I remember, for example, when I saw in the theatre an actor I had up until then only heard on the radio with this beautiful romantic voice that I had attached my own image to, and I had fallen in love with. It was a shock. He was NOT my Romeo. Just his voice was.

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