Precarious Ringroad series (Óstöðugur hringvegur) currently contains 4 works.
It initially started with Thora´s own connection with the bird Magpie which is not native to Iceland. Dressed as a magpie she subsequently started to explore her fascination with the bird using its characteristics of gathering shiny things in its nest.
The works are multi media and site specific where the individual´s need for connecting with his surroundings is explored as well as his displacement and the search for belonging.
The title comes from the Ringroad (hringvegurinn) that snakes Iceland, biting its tail, endlessly providing the explorer with a new experience.
“Thora Gunnarsdottir is an Icelandic artist. In her work she deals quite often with the issue of her nativeness, with belonging, whether it is to something explainable or not. Her work often seems to be hints of frustrated questioning. Never straight to the face, but more subtle and delicate. She touches on the grey zones in our lives. How we connect, interact and merge with our surroundings. The zones resemble levels of being human, the many sides of a person, physical or psychological. The zones are also similar to the different ways which Thora explores her issues. One that is the performative, playful, uncontrollable roaming – going with the flow, perhaps subconscious and the other one which is more rational, scientific, conscious and realistic, even normal. The mundane and the hidden are issues some of us might be unwilling and in some cases even frightened to plunge into.
Her work ”Precarious Ringroad” touches the ground of Mumbo Jumbo madness to an extent, which might be too much for people who have prejudiced views about the supernatural and mythological. But with her frank and open minded honesty and curiousness to her issue she manages to keep her audience intrigued and relaxed. I get the feeling she respects her questions and audience. She is not trying to play a trick on us. In the “Precarious Ringroad” the point is the journey – and the process of exploration that takes place during the journey. To me it has been clear that the form of the work and the content merge into one zone. She is romantic. She is playful.
Nina Lassila, artist.“