We stayed in burning houses, mothered the fire that left us burnt. We thought that suffering was the price that had to be paid for love. We played the cards that we were dealt.
We loved, gave chances, again and again and again, then we lost. This is a burial of our shared pain, and together we are resurrected. 

On the other side.
We see clearly what once blinded us; we are lucky to have each other. 

We were never really alone.

“To love is to burn, to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise” (Sense and Sensibility, dir. Ang Lee, 1995). But no one survives the fire. At least not alone.

Through Thick and Thin is an exhibition about love, heartbreak, and grief. To love is both tender and cruel, and no love, however cruel, is wasted. The exhibition is a site of both vulnerability and intimacy, compelling the viewers to confront the often uncomfortable realities of human experience. It consists of confessional writings, drawings, watercolors, and installations, which in a concrete and metaphorical sense point to the relationship between the oblivion of memory and the dissolution of romantic relationships, offering an intimate exploration of heartbreak. Memory is ephemeral, and works about reality are often at best only faint glimpses and fragments of what we have seen, heard, and felt;

For representation is a depletion of the thing being represented. Each reiteration erases a layer of its original essence, and all that we are left with are ruins.

These works are offerings from the wreckage.

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Biography

Dýrfinna Benita Basalan (b. 1992) is a visual artist born and raised in Iceland, with roots in the Philippines. She graduated with a BA in Fine Arts and Design from Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam in 2018. Since then, she has worked independently as an artist, in addition to being a founding member of the artist collective Lucky 3, established in 2019 alongside Melanie Ubaldo and Darren Mark.

In 2022, Lucky 3 received the Encouragement Award for their performance, PUTI, which originally premiered at Sequences 2021 in OPEN.

Dýrfinna has exhibited her work both in Iceland and internationally, working across diverse media including pencil drawing, installation, and steel sculpture.

Her practice explores societal systems and symbolism in the context of post-capitalism, where true values—such as time, wisdom, and natural resources—are often devalued or lost. Drawing from personal experiences and her relationship with the world around her, her work evokes complex and ambivalent emotional responses.

Dýrfinna is also known for her music under the alias Countess Malaise.

Melanie Ubaldo (b. 1992, Philippines) is an Icelandic artist based in Reykjavik. She graduated with an MA in Fine Arts from the Iceland University of the Arts in 2022. Melanie has exhibited widely in Iceland and internationally. Melanie was the recipient of the Svavar Guðnasson and Ásta Eiríksdóttir fund for promising artists in Iceland in 2021. Alongside her solo practice, Melanie is a founding member of Lucky 3, a collective of Icelandic artists of Filipino origins. Lucky 3 were the recipients of the Motivational Award from the Iceland Art Prize in 2022. Her works have since been acquired by the National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik Art Museum, and other institutions, and are in private collections.

Ubaldo creates monuments to unbelonging. Her artistic practice constitutes an examination of profound intersectionality by way of biography. Her works are characterized by vulnerable autobiographical narratives around racism, prejudice, power, and discrimination. Using diverse media, her large-scale installations address home, memory, poverty, displacement, immigration, and identity. Despite the scale of her works, they simultaneously bring forth a delicate quality, mirroring the fragility and precariousness of their subject matter.