Words by

John Rogers

Photo by

Art Bicnick

The work of the gallerist is an opaque craft. They are the people who help artists navigate the tricky terrain of the industry — networking and dealmaking, detail-wrangling and logistics, hand-holding, hustling, and a lot more besides. They need to have a good eye for art, for the market, and for the zeitgeist. Aesthetic, entrepreneurial, organised, inspired — the gallerist is called upon to be part chameleon, part workhorse, and part unicorn. 

Ásdís Þula Þorláksdóttir is the gallerist behind Þula, a commercial gallery that has garnered a strong reputation on the Reykjavík scene in recent years. We meet at the gallery’s downtown location — a glassy, minimalist space in the base of the Hafnartorg development. She looks up from her typing, and welcomes me inside warmly. We cast our eyes over the small ceramics, clusters of photographs, and striking, large-scale paintings that adorn the space. 

Plan B  

“I didn’t grow up wanting to be a gallerist,” she says, matter-of-factly. “It wasn’t planned. It just happened. Sometimes life is like that.” Ásdis trained as an actress in London and New York, but when she returned, she realised she’d become detached from the local scene. “I felt ready for the big stage,” she says. “But I’d been away for the whole of my 20s. I didn’t know anyone.”

While she considered what a plan B might be, she started to work with her father, Þorlákur Kristinsson Morthens — an acclaimed Icelandic painter, better known as Tolli. “He’d never worked with a gallery,” she says. “He’s sort of been on his own for his entire career. I started assisting him, doing open studios, and handling sales. And I found that I really enjoyed it — getting to know people who are interested in art, and mediating art to the public.” 

Ásdis originally planned to launch a low-key space located in a friend’s garage — a plan that Covid derailed. When the long-lived Hverfisgallerí came up for sale, she saw an opportunity.  “I bought it, and merged it with Þula,” she says. “Some of the artists decided to continue working with the gallery — and now we have the roster!” 

No blueprint 

Þula has been going from strength to strength ever since. The gallery’s main location has relocated to The Marshall House, sitting alongside renowned artist-run collectives Kling og Bang and Nýló, and the trailblazing i8. The newest addition is the Hafnartorg space — a place to air work that would otherwise be hidden away in storage, and to show emerging and mid-career artists. 

“It was all learning by doing,” says Ásdís. ”There isn’t a full blueprint of how to run a gallery. In the beginning I thought, ‘I’ll just be hanging artwork, and that will be my job’.” But as she started to work with more artists, and clients, a philosophy started to emerge. “I think selling art is a beautiful thing,” she says. “I love it when we place artwork in a nice, established collection. But I also think that art shouldn’t be a luxury — it’s a way of life. I’m always happy to see work placed in a home where it can be loved, and the family can be inspired every day. So it’s not just about sales.” 

The big project 

Placing works in major institutions is also about building legacy, which takes a close, personal understanding of what each artist wants. “There are different ways to think about these things,” says Ásdís. “Some galleries want to be more in control of how everything pans out. I do my best to educate our artists about the way the art world works, so we can make mutual decisions on how we want the career to go.” 

Getting art out there also entails working internationally — acting in an almost ambassadorial role for Icelandic art. Ásdis meets people from all over the world, and all parts of the industry, and gets to experience the international perspective on Icelandic art firsthand. “I think the Icelandic Arts Centre has been doing a fantastic job at introducing Icelandic art internationally,” says Ásdís. “And i8 really carved a path with Ragnar Kjartansson, and Ólafur Elíasson, and a lot of the artists that they work with. I think Icelandic art is on a nice wave, and people are really interested in what’s happening here. They aren’t afraid to add Icelandic work to their collections, and have faith that it’s going to grow. Everyone’s working together on the project of getting Icelandic art out there. It’s exciting!”  

In the flow 

Þula has shown work around the Nordic region, and had planned to work more in the United States. But with the arrival of Trump’s tariffs, and the accompanying sense of uncertainty,  plans have started to shift. “We just don’t know what’s going to happen,” says Ásdís. “So now, I am looking more towards Europe — to Paris, maybe, or Basel. So we’re in the flow with that.” 

For Ásdís, this sense of flow and intuition has been a powerful guide. “I am a big believer in the flow,” she says. “Of course, you can’t sit around and do nothing, you have to be proactive. But when you keep your eyes open for opportunities, and when you’re willing to take a different direction than you’d planned, then you’re open to new things that will come your way. That really is how I’ve been going through this — just letting things come.” 

Lilja Birgisdóttir’s exhibition The Moment You Look Away opens at Þula on August 16, at 17:00. To find out more about Þula’s current and future shows, visit thula.gallery.