Original encaustic & oil — Ísland & España

Mindfulness
in Iceland

Paintings made where human order meets the organic world — where wax moves of its own will, where maps dissolve, where rust tells the truth about time.

Garðabær, Ísland  ·  Manilva, España

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The work

Where the planned meets
the uncontrollable

I am drawn to things with a history. A leaf rotting back into the ground it fell from. Iron becoming rust. The cross-section of a tree with a nail driven into it a century ago — the iron left to rust while the tree simply kept growing, absorbing what had been forced into it, making it part of itself. These are not signs of failure — they are evidence of time, of the slow conversation between what we made and what nature is already undoing.

My paintings begin there. In the blur between the built world and the living one. Between what has been and what is coming — an unknown future that the forces of nature are already writing, without asking permission.

“I didn’t choose painting because it seemed interesting. I chose it because I needed it. Letting go is something life teaches you slowly, whether you want the lesson or not. The wax just made it visible.”

“Encaustic doesn’t forgive planning. The wax cools in seconds. It moves while liquid in ways you didn’t ask for. I have learned that those are the best moments — when the material takes over and makes a decision I wouldn’t have made. That’s when the painting starts to live.”
Helga Jensdóttir
How I see

Source material and studies — the world that becomes the paintings.

I slow down where most people walk past. A rusted iron ring that a tree spent fifty years growing around. The shadow a fig branch throws on a peeling wall at four in the afternoon. The way fire moves through a pine cone. These things are everywhere, and almost nobody stops for them.

I do. I crouch down. I look closely. I breathe in what is actually there — the texture, the quality of light on something that has been quietly changing for decades. This attention is not separate from my painting. It is the same act. The camera and the brush are the same gesture — a refusal to rush past the world without noticing it.

The iron the tree grew around
The iron the tree grew around
Shadow, Manilva
Shadow, Manilva
Rust chain
Rust chain
Wire on weathered wood
Wire on weathered wood
Fire, pine cones
Fire, pine cones
Shadow on linen
Shadow on linen
Helga Jensdóttir in the studio

In the studio — ‘What the Map Forgot’ on the wall

Helga Jensdóttir, Ísland

Ísland

Private exhibition — five works Exhibition — four works

Private exhibitions, Reykjavík

The artist

Helga
Jensdóttir

Garðabær, Ísland & Manilva, España

I am drawn to things with a history — the kind that only arrives with time. Rust accumulating on iron. A leaf that has been lying on wet ground all winter. The cross-section of a tree with a nail driven into it a century ago — the iron left to rust while the tree simply kept growing, absorbing what had been forced into it, making it part of itself. These things carry evidence. They have a story you can see and touch.

I spent years as an air traffic controller, working with maps, routes, grids — the human obsession with organising the sky into something legible and safe. I still think about that. I bring those charts into my paintings sometimes. Lay them into the wax. Let the heat do what it does. The map is still there, underneath — you can almost read it — but the wax has softened its edges, blurred its authority, let something organic grow across the lines of certainty.

That feels true to me. We make our systems. We draw our routes. And the world — slowly, without asking permission — begins its work.

I studied painting with Bjarni Sigurbjörnsson from 2006 to 2007, and was accepted to the Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2009. I have held two private exhibitions and participated in numerous group exhibitions, including at Saltfiskseturð, Grindavík. The years after that took me away from Iceland — working and travelling across the world. The distance turned out to be useful. I came back to painting with a different eye.

I work in encaustic wax, cold wax, and oils on canvas, panel and aluminium. I live between Iceland and Spain. Both landscapes are in the work, whether I intend it or not.

How it begins
01
Gathering
Everything begins in observation. Rust, bark, old navigation charts, rotting leaves, a shadow falling at a particular angle. I photograph and collect until something starts to feel ready. I don’t always know what I’m making until it’s made.
02
Collision
An air traffic chart laid into molten wax. The structured and the uncontrollable, placed together. The interesting thing happens in between — where the planned thing starts to lose its edges and the organic world moves in.
03
Letting go
As an air traffic controller, being in charge wasn’t optional. Every decision had consequences that moved at high speeds. Relinquishing control wasn’t something the job allowed.

As an artist working with encaustic wax, control is precisely what doesn’t work. The wax moves while molten and sets in seconds. It makes decisions you didn’t ask for. Learning to stop directing and start paying attention — to work with what the material is doing rather than against it — has been one of the more demanding things I’ve done. It turns out that letting go requires more discipline than holding on. It took me a long time to find that out.

Works offered individually and in series of three or five.
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Original works,
directly from the artist

Each piece is one of a kind. I ship internationally from Iceland and Spain. If you have a space in mind, want to discuss a commission, or would like to know more about a specific work, I would love to hear from you.

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