Abba graduated with BSc in Biology from the University of Iceland 1979. In the year 1988 she graduated as a graphic designer from the Icelandic school of Arts and Crafts (now the Iceland University of the Arts). She also attended the School of Arts and Crafts in Helsingborg, Sweden 1884-1986.
She has worked with design, illustration and advertising in Sweden and Iceland since 1988. From the year 2000 and onward she has dedicated herself increasingly to painting, first in oil and later in watercolor. Her main motives are swans as they appear in nature, folklore and as a symbol of the divine.
Abba has held seven solo exhibitions and participated in many group exhibitions.
Solo Exhibitions:
2017: Gallerí Fold, Skuggsjá konu
2014: Gallerí Fold, Beggja heima
2011: Reykjavík Art Gallery, Stefnumót
2010: Listatorg, Sandgerði, Birtufang
2010: Gerðuberg, Hugarflug
2009: Gallerí Fold, Hvítur söngur
2007: Gallerí Fold, Hamskipti
Swans have a special place in the folklore and culture of people from the Northern Hemisphere and from India, China, and even Australia. There is something so graceful and mysterious about these large, white, long-necked birds. Stories and myths seem to travel with them as the fly between countries and continents on their annual migrations. The swan is the bird of destiny – it can pass between worlds. In the Finnish mythological epic Kalevala a swan swims on the river Tuoni that separates the realms of the dead and the living. In Norse myth, a pair of swans lives by a well at the foot of the tree of the world. Swans are not always what they seem. Zeus took the shape of a swan when he seduced Leda, queen of Sparta, to father Helen of Troy. In Norse epics it is told that the Valkyrie flew as swans to fetch dead heroes from the field of battle to transport them to Valhalla.
Aðalbjörg Thórðardóttir‘s (Abba‘s) paintings evoke all these myths and mysteries without being merely illustrations of the tales them- selves. The paintings tell stories of their own but have very per- sonal feel. The women in these images have a strong but unclear connection to the swans they meet. Sometimes they seem to be messengers from another world but sometimes they appear as a mirror image of the women themselves. The paintings express regret or a kind of yearning, yearning for adventure or a new life, yearning for another, more beautiful world – the viewer can read in them his or her own desire or yearning.
Abba studied art and illustration in Helsingborg in Sweden and in Reykjavík. Her work on illustration seems to be the key to these paintings. They are narrative images though they are not merely illustrations of stories told in words. Abba uses the techniques of illustration to create her own independent visual world that does not belong to any single narrative but seems to pull them all in. Her paintings of women and swans are like the promise of a story that the viewer has to complete on his own. She uses strong symbols to achieve this effect – the promise of another world or another story which we can enter if we surrender ourselves to the images.
Jón Proppé, art writer and curator