The Perfect Landscape by Ragna Sigurðardóttir Page B

is a talented carpenter. And that’s proved very useful to him and to many others at the Academy. His parents don’t see any future in studying art. So in order to instill a bit of discipline, even though he’s no longer a child, they decided that if he studied at the Academy he would have to fend for himself entirely. So he left home the minute he got a place there. Everyone was against him apart from his girlfriend, who has stood by him like a rock,” said Agusta. “Even his friends didn’t understand him—rather than go out partying he wanted to stay at home and create his sculptures.”
    Hanna looks at Leifur’s hands fiddling with a pencil, dirt under his nails, strong supple hands, with a carved silver ring on his wedding finger.
    “Lilja told me,” said Agusta. “She was his lecturer. There was a risk of him giving up in the first semester because he didn’t fit in with the group. He hadn’t ever gone to an exhibition, you see, didn’t know any artists, and had a different taste in music. He dressed differently. He didn’t believe in himself and didn’t think he would make it, but Lilja managed to get him to change his mind. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until the finalsemester that he blossomed, when he created that installation from wood, the one that I was telling you about.”
    Hanna was thrilled by Leifur’s artworks the minute she saw pictures of them. She doesn’t have a clue what he intends to do in this exhibit, but in her eyes all his works are modern-day landscapes that blend with the city and create a background for its life. He makes sculptures that flow through the exhibition space. Using discarded building materials, roofing felt, rusty corrugated iron, wooden offcuts, glass, anything that happens to be available when a house is demolished, or discarded materials from a newly built house, he creates a richly nuanced composition of colors and textures.
    “He barely speaks to his parents even now,” said Agusta, and Hanna lets out a sigh at the thought, wishing that she had the money to pay Leifur a decent sum for his work, rather than just cover the cost of the raw materials. And how is he going to sell such large installations that you cannot store or build over again? Fortunately, he is still too young to worry about whether his work will sell; he is unrealistic and optimistic and this allows him to think big. Maybe he’s one of those who won’t give up, she thinks. One of those who keeps going until he’s able to live from his art.
    Hanna’d had to coax Haraldur to take part. It was not until they had been talking for some time about various Icelandic and foreign painters that he reluctantly agreed to join in. He would have agreed immediately to an exhibition in the main gallery, but the Annexe is another matter altogether. The Annexe is an avant-garde exhibition space that does not give paintings precedence over other media. Haraldur harbors a deep mistrust for such movements. He has very little confidence in Hanna,but the fact that his paintings have not been seen on the gallery’s walls for decades overcame his artistic reservations about the validity of this exhibition.
    This is like religion, Hanna thinks to herself. Doesn’t narrow-mindedness contradict the very spirit of art? Haraldur doesn’t believe that any of the younger generation have a genuine interest in his art. Let alone these youngsters, she thinks, looking at Leifur and Anselma. Haraldur would be surprised if he knew how open these two actually were to his art. He projects his own narrow-mindedness onto others.
    The two older men take a sideways glance at the young ones, Jon out of curiosity, Haraldur with a distinct look of disdain. Collaboration is not in his nature, not because he is stubborn or myopic—working with others, which is common among contemporary artists, is simply alien to him.
    “Well now,” Hanna begins. “Welcome.”
    Mentally she slips into fencing mode, into the starting position. She