ARTISTS:
EQUAL BUT SEPARATE COUPLE'S STRENGTH LIES IN EACH OTHER
Orlando
Sentinel
Published: SUNDAY, April 19, 1987
Section: STYLE
Page: F1
By Laura Stewart Dishman, Sentinel Art Critic
If Kristin
Eyfells had never met Johann, her husband of nearly 40 years,
she'd still be living in Iceland, designing and selling women's
clothing. And if Johann had never met Kristin, he might still
be an architect, living and working for a large firm on Long
Island.
Instead, the Scandanavians, both now in their mid-60s, became
artists and moved to Florida. They still go back to Iceland
occasionally, but prefer to spend most of their time working
in the sprawling studios that command more than half the space
in their 6,000-square-foot Oviedo home.
They like to say that the art they create in those studios has
little in common except that it is made by a husband and wife.
Yet Johann's bold, organic sculpture and Kristin's confrontational,
geometric paintings are similar in their strong impact. Twenty-seven
of their pieces are on exhibit through May 3 at the Osceola
Center for the Arts in Kissimmee, inviting comparison.
The oversized faces of well-known figures stare blankly from
Kristin's smoothly painted oils at the Osceola Center. In a
piece from her arresting ''Anonymous Ladies'' series, a square-jawed
woman with bright purple hair is set against an acid-green background.
Tiny wrinkles and shadows are transformed into stylized, elongated
diamonds enameled in harsh blue, green and purple tones.
No one can escape the penetrating gaze of these visages, especially
the hard, frozen faces of her perfect women. No emotion is expressed
in the works. The dreamlike faces are so cool, so symmetrically
presented and so geometrically exact, that they become unforgettable
icons.
Johann's abstract sculptures and works on paper are just as
unconcerned with convention, and every bit as forceful. His
cast-aluminum-and-bronze ''Receptual Cube'' is a deep-red eroded
block that looks as if it might be light to lift and touch,
despite its obvious solidity and weight. The piece is both delicate
and formal, concerned with texture, contour and tone, not with
narration or representation.
The Eyfells have shown their works alone, together and in group
exhibits in America and Europe since they moved to Orlando in
1969. But they prefer husband-and-wife shows.
''I love showing with Kristin,'' Johann said. ''We're equally
dedicated as artists and our standards are equally high. I wouldn't
be as pleased to show with her if she weren't as serious an
artist as I am. But there's nothing there that relates the works
to each other except that they were made by a husband and wife,
which is our strength.''
Leaning forward as she sat on a long, black sofa at one end
of her studio, Kristin interrupted: ''Yes, that's right. You
go into the show and see two exactly opposite artists who work
together.''
Any similarities in styles could spring naturally from their
shared Icelandic heritage or from the fact that they're on ''the
same wavelength in terms of artistic sincerity and dedication,''
Johann said. ''I don't think we enhance each other's talents
-- we really don't help each other out at all. We simply get
peer pressure from each other.
''Ours is not a competitive relationship, but our critical judgment
keeps us on our toes,'' he continued. ''We know when we look
at each other's work, we have to measure up. Her eyes are honest,
penetrating, discriminating -- and able to intercept any hint
of artificiality in my work.''
With that, Kristin shrugged and laughed almost uncomfortably
at her husband's dispassionate yet flattering evaluation. Unlike
many artist couples who work in tandem to create pieces that
seamlessly blend two styles and personalities, the Eyfells share
a respect for the need for solitude and privacy during the crucial
creative process.
''We give each other hints, but very rarely advise,'' he continued.
''Our dialogue as artists is taken for granted; we have identical
ideas about quality and are both striving for quality, which
is anything that taxes every fiber of our beings and is uncompromising.
My art is my life.''
When Johann and Kristin met after World War II in Berkeley,
Calif., he was studying architecture and she was taking a year's
leave from her clothing businesses in Iceland to travel and
study. He was painting on his own, but she had never thought
of herself as an artist.
They married in 1949 and by the end of the 1950s were living
on Long Island. Johann, still an architect, was beginning to
sell the canvases he painted in his spare time. Kristin, intent
on becoming a doctor like her father, had gone back to college
and was studying psychology. To fill a blank spot on her schedule,
she registered for a sculpture class, and ended up, like her
husband, an artist.
In 1965, after Johann had finished an advanced degree in painting
and design at the University of Florida, the couple returned
to Iceland, where he spent four years teaching art at the Icelandic
College of Arts and Crafts in Reykjavik. They came back to America
in 1969, settling in Orlando so Johann could teach at the newly
opened Florida Technological University (now the University
of Central Florida).
After nearly two decades here, their works do not reflect the
Florida experience, the artists agree.
Johann believes that his organic sculpture may be influenced
by Iceland's volcanic formations. Kristin takes her gigantic
studies of famous faces from magazines. If anything, she said,
her images reveal an interest in psychology and express her
feelings about her subjects. She does not know them personally,
yet she uses their initials as titles -- almost as if they are
friends. Somehow they are not just hers, but her.
Because so much of their energy and emotions are invested in
their work, the Eyfells rarely discuss their art -- or the art
of others. They have trouble understanding how or why people
talk about something that can be expressed only by doing.
Art, to them, is not an object but an action, Johann said, looking
at Kristin as she nodded in vigorous agreement. ''It's always
amazing to me that people try to tell me about their art. Students
sometimes try to talk about what they're doing. And I always
stop them.''
Sometimes, though, Johann will communicate, without speaking,
with Kristin when he feels a particular painting is just right.
He'll leave her a note on the breakfast table:
''It's finished now,'' Johann Eyfells will tell his wife.
