The following is an interview of Jóhann Eyfells in the early 60’s, shortly after he decided to leave architecture for sculpture.
Published Interview – October 17, 1964 – Visir (Icelandic newspaper) by Steinnun S. Briem
SB. What are you expressing with this?
JE. “I think that this work of mine does a better job of saying something about me, than I can say about ‘it’. It is very difficult to analyze and explain one’s own work. The artist expresses himself through a certain form, and through this particular form he says all he has to say. When I have expressed myself in sculpture, I cannot repeat the same thing in another form, that is to say in words. This does not mean that I don’t know what I am doing, but I express myself as a sculptor, not as a man with words. All outside influences, that affect me, all inner movements of the emotions, must inevitably find expression in my work. No artist can exist outside his times. The forces of his era always surround him. Perhaps one can detect anxiety and apprehension in my work; ruins, timelessness…how long will this live?…how long does mind live in matter? So much remains unsaid.”
SB. Are you a kind of artist-philosopher?
JE. “No, I am not. Some forms of visual expression base their life on intellectual reasoning, but my art relies more on the logic of feelings. It is two different things to know and to understand. We may know what we are doing, although we may not understand it. We turn on the light by pressing the switch, but we do not understand electricity. We understand nothing.”
“We are constantly taking new steps into the unknown, both in science and art, but do we really understand what is happening? I do not think so. That is why I cannot say much about my work. I can discuss my position and attitude towards art, but not the expression of what I sense. That is in my work and nowhere else.”
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