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Featured Artist Interview - Katrin Olina
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Katrin Olina
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Katrin Olina Petursdottir, born in Iceland, is a designer and artist whose work has been commissioned, produced and published by the National Gallery in Oslo, Print Magazine, Die Gestalten Verlag, Rosenthal, Fornarina, Mr. Teruo Kurasaki, Dupont Corian(R), Montreux Jazz Festival, 100% Design Tokyo, among others. She has steadily cultivated a provocative two-dimensional graphic language that lies between art, illustration and graphic design. The fantastical worlds it depicts are an imaginative expression of Katrin Olina’s own inner landscape, at once supernatural, organic and dreamlike.
Read on as TAXI engages her with this exclusive interview!
TAXI>>Hey Katrin! Thanks for being on board the Front Seat. You have been described as a multidisciplinary artist. What does this term mean to you personally?
Katrin>>Thank you for having me!
I was educated as a product designer, but as I have always been a fan of drawing, I take a multidisciplinary approach to my work. New technology allows me to translate my drawings on my computer screen to large sizes into a 3D space for example, or onto products or into animation.
TAXI>>You are the stronghold of an organic 'graphic language', something that has spanned all of your ethereal artworks. As a designer, how is this created, and as a viewer, what should an audience be significantly aware of when viewing your work?
Katrin>>When I got my first personal computer 10 years ago, I started to build up a visual dictionary of ideas through drawing in the computer. Coming from the field of product design, I was driven to make my drawings mechanical and component based, but eventually I just started to use the computer more as a drawing tool and draw in a way that was natural for me. I draw in the same way as my mind works, which I suppose is organic. I don´t want to tell an audience what to be aware of other than giving some time to look and see if they take in the images.
TAXI>>Many designers stretch their imaginations and abilities with the help of technology. One argues that in art the most raw of forms is still a pencil on paper. Do you think that you are still bound by certain limits when experimenting with the creation of your visual landscape?
Katrin>>Yes of course, my mind has far more capacities and creative speed than my hand or any tool I use.
Technology is great as a tool for communication and expression, but it hardly replaces your brain and ideas. What I like about the computer is that it eliminates more or less physical material from the creative process.
TAXI>>Congratulations on your recent headlines: one an installation at the Reykjavik Art Museum, the other an interior décor done specially for Cristal Bar in Hong Kong. For the Bar, you “exploited the film and printing technology of 3M to create a huge seamless painting that expands throughout the bar's four interconnected areas that cover a floor area of 1200 square feet.” This is an example of how you ardently push creativity and technology to its limits. Did this project fulfill all your expectations?
Katrin>>What I like about the project was to be able to push graphic art to the limit in a commercial space. I think of this project as taking the Renaissance ideas of murals and bringing them to the 21st century. It's not a backdrop, it's not wallpaper, it's something else. It's storytelling in space.
TAXI>>Did you 'work from scratch' when it came to designing the bar's interior landscape of nature? Or were you inspired by something to give the bar its amazingly diverse characteristic.
Katrin>>I drew the piece especially for the project of course.
My goal was to create an experience of total immersion,… and offer a glimpse into an alternative universe and I liked that idea a lot in combination with the fact that the bar is hidden away on the 9th floor of a high rise in the concrete jungle of central Hong Kong.
TAXI>>Euelenspiegel is the name of your 85 square-meter work at the Reykjavik Art Museum. What does this title mean, and what is the basis for this extraordinary landscape?
Katrin>>The installation is composed of an 85 square meter drawing, two animation videos and a mirror. The title is German and means litterally Owl mirror, but in German it has more complex litterary references as well.
The reason I chose this title was that the installation is based on the subject mirror as reflection, opposites like positive/negative, male/female, birth/death and so on. I also chose the title because I feel there is a link between my work and the 19th century Romanticism which in return was very important in Germany.
I see this work a place at the border between real and imagined space, both in the viewer’s mind and the museum space.
TAXI>>Share with us why you chose to work with a monochromatic palette for this installation. Is there also a particular significance to its size?
Katrin>>I have worked with monochromatic palettes for years and most of the complex pieces I do are made this way. The reason for this is that it simply works better as the images are very complex and monochrome helps tie the elements together.
It simply works for my pieces better than multicolour. The size of the work fits the museum wall and part of the floor.
TAXI>>As a multidisciplinary artist, do you have one segment where you are most in touch with, and one you feel best explores and defines you?
Katrin>>I´d probably say that drawing dreams would define well what I do.
TAXI>>I'm sure everyone would love to see your current working space. How about showing it to us?
TAXI>>Okay, before we end, where would you like a TAXI to take you to now?
Katrin>>Swinging by Singapore I´d like Taxi to take me to another dimension called the Seventh Heaven.
Katrin's works are showcased on her website Katrin-Olina.com. You can also watch an animation of her work at here
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.
Read on as TAXI engages her with this exclusive interview!
TAXI>>Hey Katrin! Thanks for being on board the Front Seat. You have been described as a multidisciplinary artist. What does this term mean to you personally?
Katrin>>Thank you for having me!
I was educated as a product designer, but as I have always been a fan of drawing, I take a multidisciplinary approach to my work. New technology allows me to translate my drawings on my computer screen to large sizes into a 3D space for example, or onto products or into animation.
TAXI>>You are the stronghold of an organic 'graphic language', something that has spanned all of your ethereal artworks. As a designer, how is this created, and as a viewer, what should an audience be significantly aware of when viewing your work?
Katrin>>When I got my first personal computer 10 years ago, I started to build up a visual dictionary of ideas through drawing in the computer. Coming from the field of product design, I was driven to make my drawings mechanical and component based, but eventually I just started to use the computer more as a drawing tool and draw in a way that was natural for me. I draw in the same way as my mind works, which I suppose is organic. I don´t want to tell an audience what to be aware of other than giving some time to look and see if they take in the images.
TAXI>>Many designers stretch their imaginations and abilities with the help of technology. One argues that in art the most raw of forms is still a pencil on paper. Do you think that you are still bound by certain limits when experimenting with the creation of your visual landscape?
Katrin>>Yes of course, my mind has far more capacities and creative speed than my hand or any tool I use.
Technology is great as a tool for communication and expression, but it hardly replaces your brain and ideas. What I like about the computer is that it eliminates more or less physical material from the creative process.
TAXI>>Congratulations on your recent headlines: one an installation at the Reykjavik Art Museum, the other an interior décor done specially for Cristal Bar in Hong Kong. For the Bar, you “exploited the film and printing technology of 3M to create a huge seamless painting that expands throughout the bar's four interconnected areas that cover a floor area of 1200 square feet.” This is an example of how you ardently push creativity and technology to its limits. Did this project fulfill all your expectations?
Katrin>>What I like about the project was to be able to push graphic art to the limit in a commercial space. I think of this project as taking the Renaissance ideas of murals and bringing them to the 21st century. It's not a backdrop, it's not wallpaper, it's something else. It's storytelling in space.
TAXI>>Did you 'work from scratch' when it came to designing the bar's interior landscape of nature? Or were you inspired by something to give the bar its amazingly diverse characteristic.
Katrin>>I drew the piece especially for the project of course.
My goal was to create an experience of total immersion,… and offer a glimpse into an alternative universe and I liked that idea a lot in combination with the fact that the bar is hidden away on the 9th floor of a high rise in the concrete jungle of central Hong Kong.
TAXI>>Euelenspiegel is the name of your 85 square-meter work at the Reykjavik Art Museum. What does this title mean, and what is the basis for this extraordinary landscape?
Katrin>>The installation is composed of an 85 square meter drawing, two animation videos and a mirror. The title is German and means litterally Owl mirror, but in German it has more complex litterary references as well.
The reason I chose this title was that the installation is based on the subject mirror as reflection, opposites like positive/negative, male/female, birth/death and so on. I also chose the title because I feel there is a link between my work and the 19th century Romanticism which in return was very important in Germany.
I see this work a place at the border between real and imagined space, both in the viewer’s mind and the museum space.
TAXI>>Share with us why you chose to work with a monochromatic palette for this installation. Is there also a particular significance to its size?
Katrin>>I have worked with monochromatic palettes for years and most of the complex pieces I do are made this way. The reason for this is that it simply works better as the images are very complex and monochrome helps tie the elements together.
It simply works for my pieces better than multicolour. The size of the work fits the museum wall and part of the floor.
TAXI>>As a multidisciplinary artist, do you have one segment where you are most in touch with, and one you feel best explores and defines you?
Katrin>>I´d probably say that drawing dreams would define well what I do.
TAXI>>I'm sure everyone would love to see your current working space. How about showing it to us?
TAXI>>Okay, before we end, where would you like a TAXI to take you to now?
Katrin>>Swinging by Singapore I´d like Taxi to take me to another dimension called the Seventh Heaven.
Katrin's works are showcased on her website Katrin-Olina.com. You can also watch an animation of her work at here
© 2003 - 2008 by TAXI Design Network. All rights reserved.