1970-1924
Bergsdóttir developed a unique style in her embroidery works which relate to both craft traditions and geometric abstract art and appeal to people in countless ways. A survey exhibition featuring Bergsdóttir’s works opens at Gerðarsafn on April 30, 2025, curated by Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir. A book about the artist’s career and works will be published by her family parallel to the exhibition.
Bergsdóttir was born in Reykjavík in 1970. She began making art in her thirties using a needle, yarn, and canvas in her own distinctive way, thus making the work for which she is best known. She worked directly onto the canvas, stitch by stitch, bit by bit, without a pre-designed pattern. Previously, Bergsdóttir had also created drawings in a not unsimilar way with patterns drawn with marker on paper.
Over an 18-year period, Bergsdóttir created 66 embroidery pieces. Her work evolved from straight lines and squares into smaller and more organic forms until form nearly vanished, and she only placed one cross-stitch in each colour at a time on the surface. In Bergsdóttir’s latest works, this creates the feeling of the surface vibrating.
Bergsdóttir exhibited her works many times as part of the festival Art Without Borders and at various museums and exhibition venues from 2003 to 2023, and she was chosen as the honorary artist of Art Without Borders in 2011. She held both solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions during her career and succeeded with her outstanding works in breaking visible and invisible walls.
Based on an article by Margrét M. Norðdahl
