What makes some of these local or global creatives tick? In this weekly column, Kristjana S Williams, Icelandic artist and designer, shares her favourite things.
1. Design Inspiration: I think my work and design inspiration is always from Iceland. So, nature really is at the heart of everything that I do. The contrast between the black lava of the volcanoes, the frozen over ice. But then, coming over here to England, that really breaks into that contrast. Working with the Victoria and Albert Museum, Fortnum and Mason, all of these historical places – I love that deep contrast of like the still of nature and the old historical elements.
2. Favourite artist, music, film and food: My favourite artist, definitely Grayson Perry. But I like things as they come flowing through, so it changes from time to time, but I love Grayson Perry. I love Andy Warhol. I love their work ethic and how they work. I really identify with that. As for music, I really like kind of low volcanic, electronic music. My favourite film… Oh, this is a terrible one. I like Fantasia from Walt Disney. And I like Elf with Will Ferrell in it. I’m a great, great lover of food. I love food, I think alongside nature and nothing really makes me happier. And Icelandic food is fantastic.
3. Role Models: The women in my life are my role models. The Icelandic women, including my fiesty, old grandma. They helped me realise that anything’s possible.
4. Recent Collaboration: Ecco has been a brand that I’ve known since my childhood in Iceland. That was what really tickled me. And the response from everybody in Scandinavia after the collection came out has been so wonderful. It verified that gut feeling, the instinct that I had about the collaboration. It was a really, really lovely brief and they were quite interested in going into the wilderness even though it was quite a traditional pattern. We had little cat’s ears and made little creatures out of florals patterns. It was just such a pleasure to work on, the team were absolutely amazing.
5. Hobbies and Past Times: My favourite hobbies or past times, are wherever I can be in water, like swimming. I think definitely that is one of the things that I love doing the most. Being in nature, walking. Generally that, and eating is number one, two and three.
6. Indulgence buys: I think I really love Anya Hindmarch. I really love her designs. I do love Ganni, the Danish label. I do love all the little figurines in the comic stores in Barcelona. I think another thing is going to markets and finding old buried treasures.
7. Proudest achievement to date: I feel like when I look over my body of work, I feel like that’s kind of what makes up the whole what I feel really proud of. I feel extremely proud of all the work that I’ve done with the Victoria and Albert Museum because that is one of my main inspirational places to be in there really means a lot. Working on the Alice in Wonderland exhibition, which is now traveling in Japan, Korea and Shanghai.
8. Favourite Travel Destinations: I feel like traveling in the Indian Ocean is absolutely incredible. Being able to see all the little sea creatures, the manta rays, the sharks, the coral. Absolutely mesmerized by that. I think it’s something I could do for 365 days for the year. Iceland is absolutely incredible. I’d actually like to go better and further into that. I’d like to go to Costa Rica, Argentina. I travel much more around Asia. I’d like to go to Fiji. I’d love to go to Oceania and look at many more things there.
9. Other favourites: Another one of my favourite things would be the French house that I’ve bought and done up. It’s a holiday home, and it’s a huge, adventurous, mish-mash, eclectic mix.
Once you’re done with this story, click here to catch up with our December/January 2023!
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