Gerðarsafn honors Guðrún Bergsdóttir (1970–2024) and her artistic career with a retrospective exhibition curated by Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir. Along side the exhibition, the book Hugarheimar will be published, a beautiful undertaking by Guðrún’s family, featuring images of her works and essays on her creative practice.Guðrún worked on the margins, operating within the fringe scene of Icelandic visual art. Yet, she still made several significant forays across major thresholds into the large museums and onto main stages, mostly through the efforts of the festival Art Without Borders. Guðrún exhibited frequently at the festival and was named its honorary artist in 2011. And even though Guðrún was based on the periphery, her works spoke deeply to the hearts of many artists and art lovers who found wonder and inspiration in them. She worked with an unbounded mind – not seeking to break the rules but rather to create her own. In this way, her 66 embroidery works leave their mark on Icelandic art history, even though they were created in freedom from it.Guðrún embroidered. She didn’t sketch the image beforehand, but simply stitched directly into the canvas, her mind guiding her hand. She would embroider on bus rides and during coffee breaks at work, which leaves a lasting image in the imagination: a tireless artist who doesn't require the perfect conditions or time, but perhaps finds mental calm precisely in the act of creating. Embroidery is a medium of patience, of tiny steps accumulating slowly over time, but Guðrún left behind 66 completed such works, along with several unfinished ones, created over an 18-year period. Before that, Guðrún made drawings in felt-tip pen, where the strokes resemble the stitches of embroidery, but in her hands the qualities of the felt-tip came into their own—how it defines each mark, how its permanence cautions each gesture it commits to paper. Both media — traditional yet marginal — became tools of creation for Guðrún, wielded with varying intensity, from swiftness to painstaking care. They share the same precision and devotion, where forms transform into an organic rhythmic pattern. The works might awaken a desire in people to softly stroke them and sing to them. But do not touch the works. Let them touch you.