The son of an actress and a director, Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson grew up in a world where the theatrical and the autobiographical did not have a strict division. Kjartansson works across a range of media including performance, painting, and video installations. Regardless of the form his work takes, irony and joy are often central to the premise. Inspired by his Nordic upbringing, he employs repetition and duration as creative modes to explore concepts like melancholia, banality, and the beauty found in everyday life.

–Emily Nicole Rader, from the Glenstone Field Guide