Ragnar Axelsson, RAX

Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson, also known as RAX, has worked in some of the northernmost regions of the world, in Iceland, Greenland, and Siberia, documenting people, animals, and landscapes.

Ragnar Axelsson, RAX (Iceland, born 1958), *The Sea—No 1,* 2018. 285 gsm Portrait White cotton paper with archival ink, 46 1/2 x 67 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Ragnar Axelsson

RAX first fell in love with the massive ice caps when he saw the ice-covered volcano in southeast Iceland, Oraefajokul, at seven years old. Ice caps cover over 10 percent of Iceland, shaping the country’s land and psyche. The photographer has nurtured a deep affinity for ice through his photography for more than four decades.

RAX’s pictures are documents of a specific time and environment, yet the emphasis on glacial forms, textures, and patterns abstracts them. His images highlight the region’s beauty and environmental degradation, specifically in respect to shrinking glaciers. The terminus is the end of a glacier, usually the lowest end, and is also often called a glacier toe or snout. The photographs on view connect the vital regional story to growing global concern over climate change.

Ragnar Axelsson, RAX (Iceland, born 1958), *Terminus — No 5,* 2018. 285 gsm Portrait White cotton paper with archival ink, 46 1/2 x 67 inches. Courtesy of the artist. © Ragnar Axelsson

“The thrill of discovering the glaciers has made a deep and lasting impression. The ice falls, ice caves and gigantic icebergs floating in the lagoons, fascinating from the start, are fascinating still. Walking across a glacier’s cracked surface, climbing a mountain wrapped in thousand-year-old ice, and riding bareback over a raging glacial river, are extraordinary adventures; but exploring the glaciers from above changes one’s very understanding of a glacier itself.”

— RAX

Explore more artworks from North Atlantic Triennial

Featured

Ragnar Axelsson, RAX

In his photographs, Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson, also known as RAX, uses soft focus, bright light and absolute black and white tones to reflect on the present and show us the condition the world is in. RAX has worked in some of the northernmost regions of the world, in Iceland, Greenland, and Siberia, documenting people, animals, and landscapes.

Jordan Bennett

Jordan Bennett lives and works on his ancestral territory of Mi’kma’ki in Terence Bay, Nova Scotia. He explores land, language, and familial histories in his art to challenge colonial perceptions of Indigenous histories.

Jason Brown aka Firefly

Jason Brown, also known as Firefly, is a Native American of the Penobscot Nation, with Swedish roots, born and raised in ancient Wabanaki territory. Deeply influenced by the traditions of his people, Firefly performs traditional hand drum, Shaker, and vocal songs as well as cutting edge musical compositions rooted in his ancestral traditions.

Christopher Carroll

Maine-based artist Christopher Carroll is concerned about plant autonomy, or the capacity of plants to assess, perceive, and act on their environment, and in doing so, generate the conditions for their own flourishing.

Jóhan Martin Christiansen

Jóhan Martin Christiansen is primarily a sculptor and installation artist who splits his time between the Faroe Islands and Copenhagen, Denmark. He draws inspiration from both natural and built environments. His work also engages with queer theory to explore the varieties and depths of sexual identity.

Lauren Fensterstock

Portland-based artist Lauren Fensterstock creates detailed, labor- intensive, large-scale installations that draw from the decorative arts, including paper quilling and mosaic. She is preoccupied with our relationship to nature and humankind’s attempt to control it.

Gideonsson/Londré

The artistic duo Gideonsson/Londré, who live and work in the village of Kallrör, Sweden, examine the relationship with time and body through performances, installations, and interventions.

Julie Edel Hardenberg

Greenland’s complicated history informs the work of Inuk/Kalaaleq artist Julie Edel Hardenberg, who lives and works in Nuuk, the small capital city located on the southwest coast. She explores identity, culture, and language from a postcolonial perspective to address mental colonization, cultural assimilation, and socialization structures.

Reggie Burrows Hodges

Reggie Burrows Hodges explores the power of storytelling and visual metaphor in his figurative paintings that address themes of identity, memory, community, and truth.

Ann Cathrin November Høibo

Norwegian weaver Ann Cathrin November Høibo draws upon the pared- down aesthetic of her Nordic heritage to recraft landscapes in large-scale handwoven textiles.

Joan Jonas

Joan Jonas is firmly placed historically as one of the first and most important figures of performance and video art. Since the 1970s, Jonas has split her time between New York and Nova Scotia, Canada. Her artistic practice encompasses video, performance, installation, sound, text, and drawing.

Jessie Kleemann

Artist and poet Jessie Kleemann is originally from Upernavik in northern Greenland; today, she lives and works in Copenhagen, Denmark. Trained as a lithographic artist, she works with traditional and contemporary Inuit themes, video, music, poetry, and dance.

Justin Levesque

In his interdisciplinary practice, Portland-based artist Justin Levesque considers the materiality and tradition of photography in relation to information exchange and mediated geographies of the High North.

Anna Líndal

Icelandic multidisciplinary artist Anna Líndal explores geography, mapping, and cartography informed by scientific expeditions that track, record, and visualize the changing landscape.

Meagan Musseau

Meagan Musseau works from her contemporary perspective as a L’nu woman living on Ktaqmkuk [Newfoundland]. In her practice, she explores the history of interterritorial relationships between Mi’kmaq and Beothuk nations to enact Indigenous survivance, which is a way of life that nourishes Indigenous ways of knowing, and bring to light the immemorial history of the importance of land to Indigenous peoples.

Mattias Olofsson

Mattias Olofsson lives and works in Umeå and Storbrännan, Sweden. He explores questions of identity in relation to inclusion and exclusion, inspired by masks and confusion, namely situations where the identity arises from being awarded or taking its space in a larger structure.

Frida Orupabo

Born in Norway and of dual Norwegian and Nigerian heritage, artist Frida Orupabo is also a trained sociologist who mines images from archives, the media, and her personal life to create new readings and meanings.

Bita Razavi

Bita Razavi was born in Tehran and currently lives and works between Helsinki, Finland and countryside Estonia. Their practice is centered around observations and reflections on a variety of everyday situations, examining the inner workings of social systems in relation to the political structures of various countries and national events of historic pro- portions.

Joshua Reiman

In the new film Time Washes Over Us, Portland-based Joshua Reiman considers mortality through marine life and poetic and observational storytelling.

Hans Rosenström

Using the ephemeral, yet tactile, qualities of sound to architectural interventions, the works by Finnish artist Hans Rosenström are carefully produced in relation to the sites in which they are experienced.

Marét Ánne Sara

Sámi artist, activist, and writer Máret Ánne Sara artwork is a protest and symbol of the Norwegian government’s forced slaughter of reindeer belonging to Indigenous Sámi herders in Finnmark County.

Magnús Sigurðarson

Icelandic artist Magnús Sigurðarson’s sculptures read as tongue-in-cheek memorials to the cod fish, a species that is closely connected to the history and living inhabitants all around the North Atlantic.

Katarina Pirak Sikku

Examination of Swedish colonization, the government-sanctioned assaults and a history of denial have been a central aspect of artist Katarina Pirak Sikku’s work.

Andreas Siqueland

Norwegian artist Andreas Siqueland’s paintings are primarily landscapes in oil, ink and watercolor on board, paper and canvas. His works play on the active relationship between the conditions in which a painting is made and the ‘what’ it depicts.

Snæbjörnsdóttir / Wilson

The artist collective Snæbjörnsdóttir / Wilson investigates the complications of human and nonhuman relations through the study of polar bear arrivals in Iceland.

Peter Soriano

Maine-and-New York based artist Peter Soriano began his career making resin sculptures before shifting to large-scale, site-specific wall drawings made of acrylic and spray paint.

Anders Sunna

Anders Sunna is a Northern Sámi artist from a reindeer-herding family in Kieksiäisvaara, in the Swedish part of Sápmi. Sunna’s politically charged artworks narrate the history of the violence and oppression against the Sámi people, specifically addressing his family’s five-decade-long struggle for their right and acknowledgement to be forest reindeer herders.

SUPERFLEX

The Danish artist collective SUPERFLEX reimagines our environments and embraces the future of vertical fish migration by designing new structures.

D’Arcy Wilson

Atlantic Canadian artist D’Arcy Wilson’s work laments past and ongoing colonial interaction with the natural world from her perspective as a descendent of European settlers in Atlantic Canada.

Arngunnur Ýr

In her paintings, Arngunnur Ýr interprets Icelandic landscape from a unique perspective of a nature guide.

Guest UserFebruary 11, 20222022 nat artist

Ragnar Axelsson, RAX

Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson, also known as RAX, has worked in some of the northernmost regions of the world, in Iceland, Greenland, and Siberia, documenting people, animals, and landscapes.

Explore more artworks from North Atlantic Triennial

VISIT
EXHIBITIONS
PROGRAMS & EVENTS
PMA FILMS
JOIN & GIVE
Learn
WINSLOW HOMER STUDIO

Art For All
Sustainability
ABOUT THE PMA
Donate Online
PRESS ROOM
ANNUAL REPORTS
PMA Recommends

Facility Rental
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
careers
DIRECTORY
IMAGE SERVICES
Terms of Use
Contact US

LOG IN: Staff | Docents | Trustees

Ragnar Axelsson, RAX

Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson, also known as RAX, has worked in some of the northernmost regions of the world, in Iceland, Greenland, and Siberia, documenting people, animals, and landscapes.

Explore more artworks from North Atlantic Triennial

VISITEXHIBITIONSPROGRAMS & EVENTSPMA FILMSJOIN & GIVELearnWINSLOW HOMER STUDIO

Art For AllSustainabilityABOUT THE PMADonate OnlinePRESS ROOMANNUAL REPORTSPMA Recommends

Facility RentalBOARD OF TRUSTEEScareersDIRECTORYIMAGE SERVICESTerms of UseContact US

LOG IN: Staff | Docents | Trustees

VISIT
EXHIBITIONS
PROGRAMS & EVENTS
PMA FILMS
JOIN & GIVE
Learn
WINSLOW HOMER STUDIO

Art For All
Sustainability
ABOUT THE PMA
Donate Online
PRESS ROOM
ANNUAL REPORTS
PMA Recommends

Facility Rental
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
careers
DIRECTORY
IMAGE SERVICES
Terms of Use
Contact US