Egill Sæbjörnsson

Egill Sæbjörnsson


Born 1973 in Reykjavik, Iceland. Lives in Reykjavik and Berlin. Egill Sæbjörnsson graduated from the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts (now the Icelandic Academy of the Arts) in 1997 and studied at the University of Paris, St.Denis, from 1995 to 1996.

Sæbjörnsson’s work is an approach to experience, a mode of behaviour, a play. He creates arrangements that cannot be described as mere “installations”. They are all at once performance set, sculptural accumulations and three-dimensional drawings. Music plays a vital part in his art projects, and he is a musician as much as a visual artist. With an artistic background in drawing and painting, Sæbjörnsson has always been fascinated by video and animation, and his current work can be seen as a (techno)logical continuation of painting. Some of his works incorporate music and projections with everyday objects, in a way that is both comical and poetic. Other works feature complete stage sets and performances, with cut-out figures that talk and sing and interact with commonplace objects or with the artist himself, all with strong references to both contemporary society and cultural and art history.