“Woman Made By Odin" Open Exhibition Review

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The solo exhibition "The Women Made by Odin" by the renowned Icelandic artist Ms. Tobba is being launched by the WINNERS GALLERY in 2023. As the first solo exhibition for the artist in China, and this exhibition includes 37 oil paintings and 8 sculptures from different periods of her 30-year artistic career. Her sculptures are inspired by legendary stories of Viking ancestors, while her paintings depict events happening in society and her childhood experiences. They represent sadness, anxiety, loneliness, or violence and sometimes tell stories of people around her. She creates using various materials such as oil paint, wire, clay, rocks, concrete, and textiles, and is constantly exploring more possibilities in materials. 

The world presented in the works of Tobba is unique, resilient, beautiful, and imbued with a sense of exploring nature. These distinct authorial qualities stem from both the boldness and viewpoints of a feminist author and the influence of the natural environment on the creative process. This is a precious coincidence and a personal, persevering achievement.

In her paintings, the author skillfully employs the relationship between black and high-purity oil colors to create images that are both unfamiliar and familiar. This ability to break away from conventional modes of observation is due to natural phenomena such as the midnight sun, the polar night, and the aurora borealis, as well as the author's in-depth observations of Viking women and her capture of the implicit emotions of women as a group.

We see the author's observations projected onto the atmosphere of human civilization, much like the aurora borealis, making the suppressed realities of women and marginalized groups visible to those who are willing to reflect and effect change. Through her own approach, she builds a relationship between creativity and humanitarianism, allowing her works to transcend the realm of aesthetics.

In her sculpture, the author's characteristics are reflected more in her way of observing and summarizing, we experience the author's heightened sensitivity to materials. She incorporates deindustrialized methods into the entire creative process, replacing precise, intelligent processing schemes with warm operations that establish a spiritual connection between the work, the author, and the land. 

Þorbjörg Magnea Óskarsdóttir Tobba (b.1975, Iceland) currently lives  and works in Beijing.

Selected exhibitions include: “Tobba First Art Show”, Forsíða - Hitt Húsið, Reykjavík, Iceland (1999) ; “Keflavik - Tobba”, Glodarinnar, Keflavik, Iceland (2000) ; “Gallery 35”, Hafnargata, Keflavik, Iceland (2000-2001) ; “Tobba Exhibition”, Lóuhreiðri, Reykjavík, Iceland (2003) ; “Glasgow Art”, Glasgow Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, United Kingdom (2005) ; “Gallery 8”, Hafnargata, Keflavik, Iceland (2007-2009) ; “RAIN”, Ráin – Ráin, Keflavik, Iceland (2014) ; “Me Too”, Skólavörðustígur, Reykjavík, Iceland (2018) ; “Pop up Artshow”, Bryes Road, Glasgow, United Kingdom (2019) ; “3 from One - Night of Lights”, Hafnargata, Keflavik, Iceland (2020) ; “Tobba”, Skólavörðustígur, Reykjavík, Iceland (2021-2022) ; “Keflavik - Tobba”, Hafnargata, Keflavik, Iceland (2022) ; “Tobba” Portugese Art Center, Calcala CEM - Art Gallery, Lisboa, Portugal (2022) ; “Women made by Ordin”, Winners Gallery, Beijing, China (2023)