Magnús Helgason

Magnús Helgason (1977) is a visual artist based in Reykjavik, graduated from AKI, Akademie voor Beeldende Kunst Enschede, Holland in 2001, from multimedia department. Helgason first gained recognition as an experimental filmmaker and a stop-motion artist doing live visual performances to the music of artists associated with collective Kitchen Motors such as Jóhann Jóhannsson, Apparat Organ Quartet or Kira Kira. Gradually his interest started to gravitate towards painting. In his early works from 2003- 2008 Helgason begun dealing with text as a motif. Single words and statements provided points of departure for works in various media and categories. The language, poetry or street art style was carried over into paintings. Despite very long- winded conceptual titles, Helgason works subscribed to minimal esthetics and titles like: God appeared to me and told me he doesn ́t exist, gave a sense of narrative and even his abstract work.