Body of Water - Herma Gallery
June 6th - June 14th 2026
What is blueness?
Is it a colour, a distance, or an atmosphere? Is it found in the sea, in the sky, or in the blue cast of distant mountains?
Body of Water is Karen Ösp Pálsdóttir's third solo exhibition and continues her ongoing exploration of cobalt blue, a pigment she has worked with almost exclusively since 2019. Historically developed as a refined alternative to ultramarine, cobalt blue became prized for its ability to depict the sky and sea.
In this exhibition, her work shifts from the close-up portrait to the body and environment, placing figures within landscapes. Bodies emerge within water, along shorelines, and beneath open skies. Horizons, shells, droplets, and reflections recur throughout the paintings, reflecting the many forms of water. Her ongoing exploration of cobalt blue appears throughout the exhibition, including in a painting of a cyanometer, an eighteenth-century instrument used to measure the colour of the sky. Reimagined through a scale of cobalt-blue tonal variations derived from the artist's own process of organizing colour through tone and value, the work reflects both the history of the pigment and its central role within her practice.
