Born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1966, Magnus Sigurdarson studied at Studio Cecil & Graves in Florence Italy, 1987 - 88, Icelandic College of Arts & Crafts 1988 - 92, and received an MFA from Mason Gross School of Art at Rutgers University in 1997.
He has shown in galleries such as Dorsch Gallery, Miami, PanAmerican Art Projects in Dallas and Miami, Luhring Augustine in New York and Kevin Bruk Gallery at Art Basel Miami Beach 2007 and at international venues such as IDEOLOGIA II, Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art, Gothenburg, Sweden 2003, MOMENTUM 04 - Nordic Biennial of Contemporary Art, Moss, Norway 2004, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Gent, Belgium 2004. The First Biennial of Urban Sculpture in Shanghai, China in 2005, apart from his Native Iceland.
His works are in the permanent collections of The Collezione La Gaia, Busca, Italy, The Icelandic National Gallery, The Living Art Museum in Reykjavik, The Reykjavik Municipal Museum, and private collection such as Private Collection of Emmanuel Javouge, Private Collection of Petur Arason, "Safn/Museum", Private Collection of Alberto Chebebar among others. He currently lives and works in Miami, Florida
"Never ever underestimate The Power of the Pathetic!"
In all my visual activity, I approach it as diagnosis of the obvious. I use imagery and transcend them beyond the "pure" visual and into the emotional via the conceptual. Just the simple act of looking at a landscape up side down in a mirror we discover how much perception is involved in our everyday visual experience.
I take my everyday experiences and stop, look and think thus making the moment conceptual. This can happen in front of the TV late at night or with my son at the Sea Aquarium, in the supermarket or through a conversation with a loved one or a stranger. I reflect these moments and translate them into my own visual language. The language I use is multi channeled and therefore my mediums. I have painted, sculpted, drawn, photographed, filmed and stacked so as to reflect the concept as well as I can.
My collision course with art began early on in my life without me necessarily knowing it. My mother was an art history teacher and had over the years accumulated a great library of art books into which I descended at times, marveling the power of the visual and how an individual can make leave an eraseable mark on soceity. As graduating from college my interest lay in the fields of Nature science and industrial design and the latter got me to live in Florence for a year where my interest and enthusiasm for visual art took over.
My life will always be my metaphorical inspiration of art. What I see and experience first hand will always be my inspiration. Therefore I consider myself a conceptual artist with emphasis on the existential, I reflect my circumstances and pass it parallel with life in general thus making historical references. I acknowledge the OTHER but believe in oneness with everything living.