Heimir Björgúlfsson is a contemporary nature painter who has work in notable collections including The Museum of Fine Art in Houston, Columbus Museum of Art at The Pizzuti in Ohio, 21C Museum in Louisville, The Reykjavík Art Museum, and Akureyri Art Museum in Iceland. His recent solo exhibitions include Fantasía Vinnustofa Kjarval and Tveir Hrafnar Listhús in Reykjavík, Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, Moremen Gallery in Louisville, Kentucky, Cerritos College Art Gallery in Norwalk, California, Akureyri Art Museum in Iceland, and the Juanita Salazar Lowe Gallery at Imperial Valley College in California.
With concepts regarding how animals coexist with humans, Heimir Björgúlfsson creates detailed paintings typically based on his own photography manipulated in Photoshop to create conceptual compositions. His creatures in the paintings range from exotic birds, such as a great auk, parrots, owls, flamingos, and hawks, along with bears and large felines. Heimir takes great pleasure in depicting animals with human-like traits and behavior, such as observing and communicating with other entities including other beasts or humans, as well as engaging in watchful and ironic behavior of a penguin-like bird perched upon the mouth of an orca. These works are in essence a statement about ecology in humanizing what would otherwise be regarded as inhuman entities. The paintings are a glorification and celebration of naturalism, environmentalism, and conservation in depicting tender actions which convey empathy towards the earth’s creatures.
The most notable paintings by Heimir Björgúlfsson tend to be his compositions containing animals in confrontational behavior with others, such as two hawks staring each other in the eyes with their head feathers flared up, a parrot flying over the portrait of a man’s face, or a penguin engaging in a friendly and cooperative manner with an orca. These human-like attributes infused into the beasts convey them as not much dissimilar to us. Although the creatures may not have the same specific desires and goals as humans, they still share a commonality with us such as yearning for companionship, playfulness, and survival. Heimir Björgúlfsson accentuates these specific traits shared between beast and humans in order to portray a connection between the natural world and civilization. In essence, the works can be regarded as invoking empathy towards nature’s creatures, admiration for their aesthetic qualities, and imploring the importance of conservation to sustain their survivability.
I thought I was… contains an ironic depiction of a great auk, an extinct bird with appearance similar to a penguin, surveying the landscape on top of the mouth of an orca. The title suggests danger or even quirkiness. What happens after the hapless great auk finds out they are perched upon the apex predator of an orca? Does the great auk build a friendly relationship or eventually end up eaten by the killer whale? If the painting suggests playfulness, the concept conveys how even opposing forces can work or engage with each other, a metaphor for the conflicts amongst humanity.
Heimir Björgúlfsson creates paintings which invoke concepts in bridging a connection between the natural world and humanities gazing eyes. These compositional illusions use painting as a vehicle to portray a ‘what if?’ scenario of beasts engaged in human-like activity to provoke a sensitivity towards their graceful, playful, and sometimes innocent nature. Heimir Björgúlfsson’s paintings contain a sensual grace which carries as much respect and admiration for these creatures as well as a sense of irony and amusement. His works are metaphorical depictions of human psychology by using animals as a motif to convey witfulness and bewilderment as an analogy for the interactions of people.