A single visit to Iceland can turn into something bigger. For some people, this country exerts a magnetic fascination that keeps them continually returning for years — or even decades. Caitlin Ffrench is one such person.
A Canadian artist who first came to Iceland in 2014, she’s since been back several times to make work, collect materials, explore and deepen her bond with the country. “I feel like I’ve been haunted by the landscape,” she says. “By the wind and by certain spots, like a gravel pit near Stykkishólmur and the Heinabergsjökull glacier.
There’s something that keeps pulling me, like I tied an invisible thread between myself and it.” Things fall apart Caitlin’s practise includes a diverse range of media, from ceramics, to film photography, to printmaking and paint-making. It also engages with a variety of topics and issues, from the environmental to the autobiographical.
“I’ve been talking about landscape, climate change and the experience of living in a body that seemingly falls apart sometimes,” she says. “I’m an interdisciplinary land-based artist. I like to work with natural materials from the different places that I visit.
It’s almost like working with materials from where I’m visiting means that I can hold part of it within my heart and in my practice — all of that is centred within telling the story of my body and the land.” It was through this work that Caitlin discovered the work of Glenn Albrecht, the Australian sust.