Country: Iceland
About me
Ragnar Hólm was born in Akureyri, North-Iceland, in 1962. For the last decade he has held seventeen solo exhibitions in Iceland and participated in various joint exhibitions in other european countries. He is a passionate watercolorist but also paints with oil. Ragnar has attended workshops and courses in Iceland, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Spain. He combines his love of nature and fly fishing with painting and writes a lot about fly fishing. Ragnar studied sociology and philosophy at the University of Iceland and now works as the marketing and promotional manager for the municipality of Akureyri.
Ragnar‘s thoughts on his art:
Inspiration exits, but it has to find you working, said Pablo Picasso. Some people wait a lifetime for inspiration but when the time comes they are not ready. I paint every day and try to be ready for the inspiration. I bring the colors with me everywhere I go. Practice and working go beyond inspiration. Oblivion with art takes you places. When inspiration jumps on your wagon, you will experience the deepest satisfaction and ride with it towards perfection. You are never there, but some steps lead you closer to what you crave for.
I paint with both watercolor and oils, but my main medium and medicine is watercolor. It is transparent and lightly dances accross and around the white essence and truth of the paper. Painting with colored water is a kind of a meditation. It soothes the soul and lifts the spirit. You need soft music or dead silence. Painting with oils is a struggle. Colors clash on the canvas and forms are rearranged until they settle in a screaming harmony and hard pounding peace. I am not compatible with art, like water is not compatible with oil, life is not compatible with death - but one can‘t do without the other.
