Egill Sæbjörnsson

1973 · Iceland

Artist biography

Egill Sæbjörnsson is seen as an established mid-career artist, who was born and brought up in Iceland, like other prominent artists such as Micha Laury, Margret H Blondal, Hlynur Hallsson, Elísabet Brynhildardóttir, and Hreinn Fridfinnsson. Egill Sæbjörnsson was born in 1973.


Egill Sæbjörnsson's work is available on viewing in Hopstreet in Brussels, Belgium and i8 Galleri in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Further Biographical Context for Egill Sæbjörnsson

Egill Sæbjörnsson was born in 1973, grew up during the 1990s and was inspired by the artistic atmosphere of the time. A collective of artists working in the United Kingdom, who came to be known as the YBAs, or Young British Artists, defined the artistic culture of the 1990s. Affiliated loosely by their age and nationality, they were a diverse collective of practitioners. Many of the YBAs attended the Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths in London, and were favoured by the ‘super collector’ of the time, Charles Saatchi. The most well known member of the group is Damien Hirst, and other members included Chris Ofili, Tracey Emin, Marc Quinn, Gavin Turk, Sarah Lucas and Sam Taylor-Johnson (née Sam Taylor-Wood). The YBAs became famous for their use of shock tactics and sensationalism, alongside their use of throwaway materials, wild lifestyles and an outlook that was rebellious yet entrepreneurial. Due to the high amount of media coverage that they received, they dominated British art during the 1990s, and their work was epitomised in the group show ‘Sensation’. Relational Aesthetics, a term coined by curator Nicholas Bourriaud to describe the act of creating art based on human relations and their social context, became a key idea in the 1990s. Works by artists including Douglas Gordon, Gillian Wearing, Philippe Parenno and Liam Gillick were described as important artists who worked to this outline.

Egill Sæbjörnsson

