The little pink rose ghost

Bjargey Ólafsdóttir’s artistic practice is not confined to a single medium; she works across film, sound, performance, drawing, painting, and photography. Her works often take the form of stories, moving fluidly between reality and fiction.

The photographic work The Little Pink-Spotted Ghost was first presented as part of a larger photographic series, with all images taken at the same location and at the same time. The work is a colour photograph shot on film. It depicts a small figure—most likely a child—playing the role of a ghost beneath a pink-spotted blanket. The diminutive ghost emerges from a family cemetery in the countryside at dusk, where the soft twilight light creates a dreamlike atmosphere reminiscent of an Icelandic summer night.

At the time the work was made, Bjargey was preoccupied with death, having recently travelled to the countryside to attend a funeral. As a child, she had played in this family cemetery, including pretending to be a ghost by placing a sheet over her head. In this work, she enters the imaginative world of the child, where play takes centre stage. Children often reflect on death and incorporate it into their games, even though they may not fully understand what death is or have experienced it in different ways. There are relatively few depictions of ghosts in Icelandic art history—at least in photography. Perhaps they are simply difficult to capture on camera.