A culinary magazine commentator and a unusually talented painter, Thorri Hringsson recreates his passionate current subjects; the art of cooking, wine tasting and food presentation. Using illustrations from The American Housewife's Cookbook from the 50's as a reference platform, his topic is expressed in paintings through glossy bright colors and immediately brings about a voracious response. One's appetite is soon charged by a sense of overload. The highly detailed works represent images filled with gelatin and sugar coating as the food transforms into a lacquered overbearing unreality.

Hringsson's paintings of smiling pretty women reflect this same pretense. The women are perfect, while through their veiling mask oozes forth frustration and dissatisfaction. As one spends time in front of the canvas, the apparently dormant images erupt. From a sweet delicious and happy scenarios a disturbing realization of decadence and superficiality comes about. Ritualized arrangements of lobsters, pigs and artful concoctions of food materials becomes a world in and of its own. The future of plastic has already passed, and Hringsson's subjects are as much about an image surface as the flatness of canvas they are painted onto. Hringsson“s surface becomes a true medium connecting the content of his paintings to the senses of the consumer. His sharp perspective compositions and realist approach brings us to the point of how a cultural reference like his 50's cookbook can result in indulgence so anticlimactic to the goodness the book was meant to bring. oth 12/99

professional work

The Reykjavik School of Art; Head of Painting Department since 1999.

The Reykjavik School of Art; Professor of painting and live model drawing since 1993.

The Reykjavik Municipal Museum of Art; Head of Public Education Program. Library and Information Department, exhibition curator. 1992-1997.

The Reykjavik School of Art; Board of directors since 1999.

collections

Extensive work in public and private collections in Iceland and Europe. These include;

The National Gallery of Art in Iceland,

Reykjavik Municipal Art Museum Iceland,

The University of Iceland Art Collection,

The BNP Art Collection The Netherlands.

exhibitions

More than 20 group exhibitions since 1987 in Iceland and Europe, 15 solo exhibitions since 1989

Selected list of solo exhibitions:

The A.S.I. Art Museum, Reykjavik, Iceland 1999

Gallery Sjonarholl, Reykjavik, Iceland, 1997

Gallery Greip, Reykjavik, Iceland, 1995

Gallery Ofeigur, Reykjavik, Iceland, 1994

Van Roy Gallerie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1991

Van Rooy Gallerie, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1990

Jan Van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 1990

publications

Interview in DV, May 26th 1999

Catalogue for an exhibition at the A.S.I. Art Museum with an article by Ulfhildur Dagsdottir: "Food for thought", May 1999

Review in DV, March 24th 1997

Interview in DV, March 17th 1997

Interview in Morgunbladid, March 15th 1997

Journalist for the culinary magazine Gestgjafinn since 1998. Articles on wine and oenology

Publisher and one of the editors of the comic magazine GISP! since 1991. Articles on comics and sequential arts in GISP!

Author of comic strips and comic books published in Iceland and Scandinavia

Numerous illustrations for newspapers and magazines since 1987

education

The Reykjavik School of Art 1984-1989.

The Icelandic College of Art and Crafts; Dept of painting, 1985-1989.

The Jan Van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht, The Netherlands; Dept of Painting, 1989-1991.

t h o r r i  h r i n g s s o n  p a i n t i n g s