Dead Wall of Paint : honore de Balzac's unknown masterpiece in relation to my own work

This essay explores the communicative relationship between Honoré de Balzac’s short story, The Unknown Masterpiece and how it is analogous to the author’s own artistic practice, mainly, in relation to erasure and abstraction while also discussing themes of deconstruction and textual use within her oeuvre. The focal point of discussion is her solo exhibition “litla sæta asíska stelpan” and how the above narratives of erasure, deconstruction and textual use are rendered through the said exhibition. Erasure is discussed synonymously with the works of Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Robert Rauschenberg and how the act of cancelling and negations ultimately leads to abstraction within her work. Conflict between style and content is discussed in relation with the deconstructionist thread characteristic in her work. Finally, the mutuality of art and life is explored through the revelation and use of autobiographical appropriated text addressed to the artist herself in their crass, unapologetic, idiosyncratic rudeness