Steinunn Önnudóttir’s work spans painting, sculpture, and installation. She pushes the boundaries of painting by expanding it into physical space and explores the tactile nature of sculpture by emphasizing surface and texture. Playing with scale and dimension, she creates connections between reality and staging. Her work frequently explores themes of decay and growth, distortion, illusion, origin, and imitation.
In her practice, she extends painting beyond the canvas, incorporating surfaces, materials, and architectural elements. Her works exist at the intersection of image and object, where pigments, layering, and process-driven transformations become integral to the composition. By experimenting with structure, transparency, and light, she creates pieces that shift fluidly between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space.
A central tension in her work lies between control and chance. She engages with materials that evolve over time, allowing organic processes to shape the final outcome. This approach results in installations where painterly elements like patina, erosion, and growth play a key role. Rooted in an expanded understanding of painting, her work blends traditional techniques with experimental methods, continually challenging the limits of the medium.