Thora Jona is a figurative Icelandic painter who takes advantage of humour to convey her emotions and help watchers open up about today's social issues.
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Thora Jona defines her paintings as a colourful slap in the face for the hardened brain.
Her artistic technique is based on the will to channel all the strong emotions that arise about everything that happens in life, into her paintings. Entering this mental flow state, the artist starts to think only in colours, and forms and to experience herself like a part of the story that is being transferred onto the canvas.
In these short stories that she depicts on canvas, Thora Jona deals with the unpleasant facts of our merciless world, with all the complicated interactions and incredible cruelness that human beings are capable of showing one another but she even talks about all the beautiful things and beings of this world. For example, the acrylic painting The truth about monsters is based on a poem by Nikita Gill and it was realized for a young girl that needed to understand her worth.
She often uses humour to convey the message in her paintings and present uncomfortable truths, since a shared laugh also indicates a shared recognition of that truth or even a shared experience.
Moreover, using humour to deal with complex topics that we often do not take in, is sometimes a way to look at them from a different perspective, understanding them a little bit more. For this reason, humour is so essential in her artistic practice.
Finally, in one way or another, all her paintings contain the elements that she considers the most important in life: kindness, humour, and respect.
Check out all of Thora Jona’s artworks on Kooness!
Cover image: Thora Jona Dagbjartsdottir, Who the hell is Barbie, 2022, courtesy of Art Gallery 101
Written by Maria Sprenger
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