Emily Floyd: Icelandic Puffins

Overview

Known for her large-scale outdoor installations and public commissions, Emily Floyd's unique style blends colourful and playful toy-like designs with challenging social, cultural and political issues facing contemporary society today. Born into a family of toymakers, the Melbourne-based artist harnesses this influence as her bright Icelandic puffins take over the Anna Schwartz Gallery. For the exhibition, Floyd has taken the innocuous puffin as a motif to explore the global financial crisis and the Icelandic government's prosecution of individuals and the collapse of three major financial institutions.

Adopting what has become recognised as typically Scandinavian design aesthetics, Floyd's handmade birds see their cheerful designs juxtaposed with confrontational text, which explores the political crisis that impacted much of the world. As a MADA senior lecturer, this will be Emily Floyd's tenth solo show at the CBD gallery and is on display April 8–29.

Image: Emily Floyd, Icelandic Puffins, 2017. Wood automotive paint black oxidised steel. Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery.