Thelma Sigurhansdóttir: Bridging the gap between the human and the cosmos.

Thelma Sigurhansdóttir, also known as Thelma Gella, has launched her debut solo exhibition: Habitat at the Art Lab Gallery, in Staten Island. An Iceland native,  completing her BA in Studio art at CUNY in New York City, Thelma’s work has been exhibited internationally in New York, Iceland, and Denmark. Outside of her studies, Thelma currently works as a sculpture assistant for a Brooklyn-based artist.

In many of the exhibition’s pieces, vast, imposing landscapes inspired by the untouched mountains of Thelma’s homeland collide with surrealist elements on the canvas. In Within Grasps, a lone house in the middle of the wilderness is grasped by enlarged human hands reaching out from the beyond. There is something beautifully unsettling about this disembodied hand of the universe encroaching on the order of our day-to-day lives. Like all the work in Thelma’s debut exhibition, it explores the tensions between our tangible world and an ineffable, imagined realm. In the collection’s other pieces, Thelma seems to question mundanity itself through her depictions of everyday modern objects. A jeep car, a rural cottage, a New York apartment building all dialogue with the fantastical as spectral hands interrupt the canvas.

While some of her work is more muted, evoking a quiet existential loneliness, others like Cascading Veil and Escape, burst with shocking vibrancy. A slew of hands claw at the very fabric of the images, tearing holes in an electric blue sky or vivid mountain ranges. Their presence challenges the very fabric of our reality. In these pieces, the interplay between depth and abstraction subverts expectations by ascribing hyperrealism to the surreal, and leaving the human world as a shadow of itself.

Sometimes the intervention of the cosmic hands is violent, tearing through dark holes in the canvases. At other times, it is oddly comforting, providing a dreamy stability to the spaces within. Ultimately, Thelma’s work raises questions about the relationship between the ordinary and the extraordinary, encouraging viewers to question their perception of our reality and open their minds to the mystical every day.

The opening reception of Habitat, sponsored by Lunar Hard Seltzer, took place at the Art Lab Gallery in Staten Island on May 10th and remains open through May 31st. The gallery’s expansive, lush grounds are a rare oasis in the bustling city, echoing Thelma’s own work, which explores the interplay between modern life, the splendor of the natural world, and the unseen layers of imagination. This bold and piercing debut is unmissable.

This post is guest written by Isabella Dockery. Thank you for your contribution!