Character Studies.

Portraits Too Can Turn Into Works Of Art: Pure Political Art And Icons. It Was Andy Warhol Who Took Black-And-White Pictures Of Marlyn Monroe And Elizabeth Taylor, Mao And Beuys And Turned Them Into Icons. The Character Studies Of Jónatan Grétarsson Are Full Of Nostalgia And Of References To The History Of Photography In The Twentieth Century. They Are Not Unlike The Material That Andy Used. Jónatan Documents Icelandic Artists Some Of Whom Are Familiar, In Color , From The World Of Icelandic Glamor Magazines. Color Photography Is Great For Glamor Magazines. But A Black-And-White Photograph Can Turn Into An Enduring Icon. Jónatan´S Hard, Direct Light Marks Out His Subjects And Pulls On Them So That They Seem To Be Coming Out To Meet The Viewer. The View Of Them Is Forbidding - No Smile, Faded Color, Regret And Nostalgia. “Where Did The Days Of Your Life Lose Their Color, And The Poems That Rushed From Dream To Through Your Blood.” As The Poet Johann Jónsson Wrote. Jónatan Has Developed His Documentary Method Into A High Art. His Photographs Presence Is Such That The Viewer Is Brought Into The Journey And Tempted To Go Through The Mirror Into That Other Reality Which Is Full Of Mirror Into That Other Reality Which Is Full Of Symbols, Icons Which Have Gotten Stuck In The Upside-Down Inner World. IT Is No Easy Task To Come Back, So Powerful Is The Experience. We Really Do See With Our Minds.

Guðmundur Oddur Magnusson