Icelandic artists Erla S. Haraldsdóttir’s exhibition:Imagine Visionary Animals – Light Moving Across Stone and Canvas, and the Khoisan connection

By Edward Tsumele, CITYLIFE/ARTS Editor

A few years ago, Icelandic multimedia artist Erla S. Haraldsdóttir stumbled upon a family secret that changed her artistic trajectory. It sparked an artistic curiosity that led her to travel thousands of kilometres to South Africa in 2019. She was immersed in a pursuit to fulfil that which was triggered in her by this discovery of the family world gone by – a dream of her own.

”I came across a dream that is steeply embedded in our family tradition, and that is that my great-great-grandmother dreamt of a strange creature –half human and half animal,” she told CITYLIFE/ARTS in an interview during the tour of her solo exhibition

That dream led her to investigate the art, life, and traditional ways of life of the Khoisan people of South Africa. She travelled deep into the Khoisan culture and their way of life by studying rock art – rock engravings left behind by the ancestors of the present-day Khoisan people of South Africa.

“But when I was there studying the rocks, the engravings, and the caves, something touched me. I felt at peace with the atmosphere of the environment,” she said.

But before the artist pursued her current body of work, which forms part of the series of that dream, she created another body of work back home titled my Mother’s Dream. That work was created following the release of a book in several languages, including, of course, Icelandic, English, and surprisingly isiNdebele, spoken mostly in the Eastern part of South Africa. The book is also titled My Mother’s Dream.

However, by bringing in the Khoisan perspective, this series has assumed a new complexity and a local flavour. The body of work forms part of her exhibition currently on at Origin Centre, a museum that centres mainly on work related to Khoisan ancestry, particularly their rock art.

I had an opportunity last week to visit the exhibition, and I was struck particularly by the fact that the work fits so well with the structural design of the building housing the Origin Centre.

Some of the paintings depict animal figures in a style similar to Khoisan rock engravings, while other works are powerful abstract renditions that will make you ponder for some time, trying to figure out what they represent. But eventually, you will have your own interpretation revealing itself. That is the beauty of abstract art –it will make you think, and a piece of abstract art takes time before one formulates their own interpretation. It is therefore advisable that one should not stress that much if you do not get the meaning right away. Believe me, you will eventually get it when you give yourself time to slowly absorb what is before your eyes and let the art engage with all your senses unhindered by preconceived ideas.

“The Origins Centre at Wits University is proud to present Imagine Visionary Animals, a site-responsive temporary exhibition by Berlin- and Johannesburg-based Icelandic artist Erla S. Haraldsdóttir.

The exhibition draws inspiration from both the physical features of the museum’s new wing—especially the colours and materials used in its architecture—and the museum’s core themes of rock art and humanity’s earliest forms of creative expression.

“The paintings explore the interplay between space and light—specifically how natural light interacts with the surfaces of rocks. This shifting light mirrors our constant movement through space as the Earth orbits the sun, continuously altering the colours and illumination we perceive in a painting,” says Haraldsdóttir.

This new body of work derives from Haraldsdóttir’s explorations of the Cederberg Mountains in South Africa’s Western Cape, where newly discovered rock art sites have shaped her visual research and motifs. By balancing photorealism and symbolic realism, she continues her long-standing investigation into how images serve as portals—linking cultural symbols, archetypes, and lived experience across time and space.

Through her distinctive form of ocular magical realism, Haraldsdóttir recognises stone surfaces as humankind’s original canvas, blending colour, transparency, light, reflection, and spatial perception. A publication accompanying the exhibition will be produced during its run,” reads the media release accompanying the exhibition.

“This body of work is divided into two parts- one part is based on my visit to—and my observation of what I saw there, and the other part is site-specific –work created to align with the design of the building,” she told me as she took me through the exhibition-

Essentially, this solo exhibition, titled Imagine Visionary Animals – Light Moving Across Stone and Canvas, is on view at the Origins Centre, Wits University, until 14 March. is the result of a two-year research and production process and presents 32 new works developed specifically for the site.

The project is deeply site-responsive: the paintings, mural, drawings, and sculptural elements engage directly with the architecture of the Origins Centre, reflecting and reinterpreting the spatial structure of the New Wing. The works

explore questions of deep time, perception, and material presence in dialogue with the institution’s archaeological context.

A publication on the exhibition is currently in production and will be published by the German publishing house Distanz Verlag, serving as both a scholarly and visual record of the project.

. Erla will give an Artist Talk with journalist Percy Mabandu at 12.00 on March 14, 2026, the last day of the exhibition. Exhibition Dates: October 16, 2025 – March 14, 2026.

Venue: The Origins Centre Museum, Wits University 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Braamfontein 2000, Johannesburg, South Africa

Curated by: Jonatan Habib Engqvist