Common Myths: Eleanor Moreton, Arna Óttarsdóttir & Amalia Bille
Forthcoming exhibition
About
We are excited to announce Common Myths, a group exhibition with Eleanor Moreton (UK), Arna Óttarsdóttir (IS), and Amalia Bille (SE), opening Friday, November 20, from 5-7 PM in the gallery
Bringing together painting, weaving, and ceramic sculpture, Common Myths unfolds as a sensory world where the poetic and playful meet the strange and, at times, the unsettling. Drawing on mythology, folklore, memory, and intuitive artistic processes, the three artists explore the complexities of our inner lives and the emotions and narratives that shape how we understand the world.
In Eleanor Moreton's paintings, children, flowers, and figures drawn from folklore inhabit worlds that are at once familiar and strange. Personal memories and old stories find their way into her work, often taking unexpected or unsettling turns. Arna Óttarsdóttir begins with small, spontaneous drawings made in her notebooks, which she translates into large-scale weavings. Through this process, a fleeting gesture becomes something substantial, while the irregularities of the original drawing remain visible. Amalia Bille works intuitively with clay, creating figures whose expressions range from tender and melancholic to comical or uneasy. Cracks, uneven surfaces and traces of the artist's hands remain part of the sculptures, giving each figure its own distinct character.
Across their distinct practices, the artists share an interest in the stories, images and emotions through which we make sense of ourselves and the world around us. Moving between the familiar and the fantastical, their works explore how the mythical, psychological and deeply personal can speak to shared human experiences.
Eleanor Moreton (UK, b. 1956) is a British painter living and working in East London. Her paintings draw together personal experience, family histories, folklore, literature and politics, often moving between the familiar and the uncanny. Working from a wide range of sources, including photographs and existing paintings, Moreton approaches the source image as something to negotiate with rather than reproduce. Figures and narratives shift through the process of painting, opening onto questions of memory, imagination, gender and the ways in which personal and cultural histories intersect. Her work is informed by a longstanding interest in psychoanalysis and the history of painting, as well as the possibilities of storytelling and fiction.
Arna Óttarsdóttir (IS, b. 1986) lives and works in Reykjavík, Iceland. Working primarily with weaving, Óttarsdóttir uses her own notebooks, filled with thoughts, drawings and everyday observations, as source material for her works. Sketches, doodles and informal visual elements are translated into woven compositions without losing the immediacy of the original marks. Patterns, textures and colours vary within individual works, allowing unexpected shifts and irregularities to become part of the image. Rather than treating weaving as a means of reproducing a predetermined design, Óttarsdóttir allows the image to develop through the process itself, bringing the spontaneity of drawing together with the slow and physical construction of the textile.
Amalia Bille (SE, b. 1971) seeks to visually interpret fleeting emotional states and moods that often resist definition. Portraits and human heads are central to her work, frequently accompanied by elements of flora and fauna. Her sculptures are characterised by a direct, naïve andexpressionist style, where playfulness and surreal, dreamlike elements coexist. Often featuring childlike facial features, her characters convey complex emotions such as melancholy, contemplation, tenderness and longing. At the heart of Bille’s practice lies an exploration of human existence and the inner landscapes we navigate. Bille’s working method is spontaneous and attentive: subject matter and form emerge organically through her interaction with the material rather than being dictated by prior sketches. The textured, irregular surfaces of her works invite a tactile experience, while visible cracks, patches, and traces of the hand become part of their expression.
