REYKJAVÍK.- What is beyond colour and form? With this question, Kristján Steingrímur nods to the master of conceptual art, Robert Smithson, who laid the foundation for a shift towards focusing on the impressions of topography within contemporary art. When Smithson filled boxes with stones and gravel collected from specific sites and brought into the gallery, he called these works non-sites. Kristján Steingrímur has developed a similar method—a personal mapping of soil in paintings based on local research, sampling, and the displacement of soil.

Instead of relying on maps or aerial photographs—as Smithson did in presenting his ideas about sites and non-sites—Kristján uses place names, soil samples, and the colours derived from them to activate the viewer's imagination. Such a transfer or interplay between different modes of discourses is one of the main characteristics of conceptual art. Here, soil is transformed into a colour that reflects a particular artistic reality, while the original place—with all its visual, cultural, and geological references—belongs to other worlds existing independently outside of art.

Kristján's works are not about travel, geology, or chemistry; rather, they could be viewed as indoor land art. They highlight the obvious fact that a soil sample from Mount Hekla, mixed with acrylic on canvas, is neither a literal depiction of Hekla nor a scientific specimen. Conversely, the boundaries between the visual and the spatial landscape are blurred, creating new connections between material, colours, and language.

Between the actual place— for example, the Stálfjallsnáma mine in Barðaströnd—and the work bearing the same name, a poetic journey unfolds across time and space. Kristján often incorporates narration into his work, emphasizing the human elements that give emotional and historical depth, revealing the human behind the colours and shapes.

In the larger exhibition space of BERG Contemporary, Kristján Steingrímur presents new paintings on canvas and paper, all created with powdered pigments extracted from Icelandic soil. Additionally, a notable work features 55 colour samples on paper, arranged in rows beneath glass (100 x 165 cm). Each sample corresponds to a specific place in Iceland. In the smaller exhibition room, earlier works shed light on the artist’s trajectory.

Coinciding with the exhibition, Kristján's new book, Beyond Colour and Form, published by The Icelandic Literary Society, offers an overview of his career, including stories, and reflections by the artist. It features numerous colour photographs of his works and their research origins. Art historian Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir and geologist Snæbjörn Guðmundsson contribute essays that examine Kristján Steingrímur's work from academic perspectives.

Æsa Sigurjónsdóttir