Hildur Ása Henrýsdóttir (b. 1987) grew up in Þórshöfn in the Langanes peninsula in northeast Iceland. In 2012, she obtained a BA in Modern Studies from the University of Akureyri. She graduated from the Fine Art department of the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2016. She lives and works in Berlin, Reykjavík and Þórshöfn.
Her practice gives an honest insight into the feminine world, deconstructing the idea of perfection and exploring the personal connections humans establish with their bodies and emotions. Hildur’s work depicts intimate moments free of taboos, embracing imperfection and blurring the line between what is meant to remain personal and what is socially acceptable to reveal in public. In most of her works, she portrays herself, exploring nudity and vulnerability, while undertaking an introspective journey into the relationships between her inner self, her own body, and the others.
Hildur’s works are personal, as she uses her own narrative and body, obscuring the frontier between fictional and autobiographical elements. By putting herself in the foreground in the artworks, she simultaneously provokes and suppresses the male gaze that tries to mold and regulate the female body. The manner the artist portrays her body makes the viewer uncomfortable, as she does not hesitate to place it in a grotesque context, thus regaining the authority over herself and the depiction of the female nude.
