Erla S. Haraldsdóttir

Imagine Visionary Animals

Traces of Past Worlds

Spanning painting, drawing, printmaking, and installation art, Erla S. Haraldsdóttir’s (b. Reykjavik, Iceland, 1967; lives and works in Berlin and Johannesburg) art grapples with the boundaries between recollection, cultural heritage, and shared mythologies. For one of her most recent projects, the artist realized a site-specific installation in the new wing of the Origins Centre in Johannesburg. Haraldsdóttir’s intervention responds to the earliest traces of human existence, the rock art of the San, and the vision of nature, animals, and spiritual worlds they convey. Abstractions of landscapes, her visual creations engage with the museum’s collections and the questions it explores, translating them into a distinctive artistic language.

Imagine Visionary Animals is released on occasion of the exhibition of the same title. With essays by Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Dr. Craniv Boyd, Dr. Alan Northover, Erla S. Haraldsdóttir, and Dr. Tammy Hodgskiss Reynard.