by Yrurari

I had the pleasure of interviewing Icelandic artist Yrurari about her life in art, an upcoming NYC installation and breaking with normality through knits. Enjoy!

How would you describe your current work? Have you ever explored other styles/mediums of art?
In my current work I focus on the possibilities of knitting. I have been fascinated with knitting since I was 9 years old and somehow it has stuck with me. Textiles in all interest me and I do have a BA in Textile design so I learned various methods in my studies, recently I also got interested in weaving and I'm hoping to maybe try out some loom-work in 2019. I also love theatre and enjoy going to any experimental performances and just anything weird that crosses through our regular ideas of our society.  

Did you want to be an artist growing up? If not, what did you want to be? I think I've always wanted to become some kind of artist but just recently understood that maybe it will work out, it's a very difficult thing staying true to yourself and also making money out of your art for living.  

Who/What inspires your work currently?
These days I'm working on my project called "Þættir" or "Episodes". The idea is to just create something with a machine knitting technique I've been working with since my graduation project. The idea is to just research, improvise and try out all ideas that come to my mind trying to bend and stretch out this interesting technique, creating sculptures that break the view in the room it is placed in. I think my inspiration is mostly humans and their surroundings and what we think is normal, then I break it up. It is a recurring theme in my work but in my work with creating sweaters, which is where my knits all started, I had the idea of making something that goes around in our everyday life, like sweater, into something weird, so the person wearing it is like a walking exhibition space for my creations.

What are your favorite things to watch or search for on YouTube/Google/Reddit...?
I watch TV-shows a lot. Recently the TV show The Good place has been a major factor in my life and I always go straight to listening to their podcast and reddit them after each episode, it's definitely the most interesting thing happening on TV now in my opinion. I also just like everything fun and comedy and watch a lot of sketch shows on youtube and google every fun person I see appearing in movies and shows I watch.

What do you have going on in 2019?
I'm going to try to open a web-store and try to finally start making a living from my art! And next thing planned is staying in the window of the Textile Art Center in Manhattan all of February, I'll have an installation there with a temporary work space of my project "Þættir". I'm extremely excited about it and just to go to NYC for the first time and experience some interesting culture! Then I'm also planning on creating a knit workshop for upcycling sweaters and I also have some knit-pattern booklets in the making now.