Heiðrik | Representing a new generation

Melancholy, it echoes on the art scene on these dark, distant islands near the world’s end. The light beam in the chaos. The beauty in the darkness. One artist to clearly thrive in this sphere is Heiðrik á Heygum. This is your guide to the Faroese artist Heiðrik á Heygum.

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Heiðrik is known for exploring the dark and the amazing. Being an artist, composer and film director he uses all of his capability to tell stories of curious creatures and fatal destinies with surroundings, sometimes more fantastic than what Alice found down the hole.

Multitalented Heiðrik has a very unique way of creating stories and atmospheres as a whole experience. But being unique is something Heiðrik has always been. Growing up being and feeling different than others, misunderstood and mostly just lost in life.

Horrific Melancholy

”The only thing one wants is to fit in”, Heiðrik says and thinks back on a society which found itself lost in the accept of diversions from the very narrow path called ”normal”.

While melancholy is a common theme of most artists on this latitude, Heiðrik admits his difficult childhood and youth might have enhanced the dark elements in his work. His fling with the horror genre has additionally been well received by both critics and audience. Watch Heiðrik’s horror short film Skuld.

Fairy Tales and Other Escapisms

”Reality sucks”, he says with a smile and does not hide that he has spent a lot of time fleeing to fairy tales and other fictive universes. He tells how, for as long as he remembers, a split second in reality would trigger flickering images in his mind; like a continuous film roll.

His earlier work might have resembled the more abstract and perhaps naive framework of fairy tales. The later years his style has evolved to a more and more realistic environment. Fantasy or moral driven fabels, perhaps, but always with a twist of irony and satire.

Like writing a diary an artist’s expression is also a healing process. The battle for his own identity has in a natural way forced him to be more concrete and perhaps honest.

”Hiding is no solution. Why should honesty be something to be ashamed of? It’s honesty. I’ve also come to realise that my work or just things in general work out much better that way”.

The melancholic echo indeed dwells on the islands. But it’s not the darkness itself, Heiðrik reminds me: ”It is the beauty in it”.

Heiðrik is born and raised in Tórshavn. Read the Ultimate Guide to Tórshavn – the town that shaped the Faroese artist Heiðrik.