Tectonic – chakra colours

All energy on Earth is based on much the same laws, although energy may also have its own characteristics, as Erla Þórarinsdóttir shows in her art. Could the tectonic plate boundary that lies across Iceland have an impact on Icelanders’ energy? The North American and the Eurasian tectonic plates meet in Iceland, and at the boundary they pull apart at a rate of nearly two centimetres a year. This is known as a divergent boundary. Such tectonic plate boundaries are not generally found on dry land, but deep in the oceans, where they form mid-ocean ridges on the sea floor.

Erla Þórarinsdóttir’s use of colour is provocative. She deliberately combines varied tones to create endless pattern. The colours in Tectonic – chakra colours evoke Erla’s experience of the body’s chakras, which have both colour, sound and frequency, as well as having an external equivalence with the seven chakras of the Earth. One of these chakras is in Iceland, which lies on the boundary of the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. The plates are in constant motion, and here in Iceland they diverge from each other and the gap is filled by new materials from the bowels of the earth. The gaps between the paintings reminds us of that divergence, and the place where previously-unseen material, free from memories, comes to the surface.