Reykjavík Museum of Photography

Wayne started working with landscape photography in the early 1980s, after about ten years as a photographer. As a child in North Dakota he had been familiar with Icelandic tales and traditions through his paternal grandparents, who were part of the mass emigration from Iceland to the New World in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 

As years went by and as his work developed, Wayne felt a need to exploring the land of his forefathers, and in 1997 he visited Iceland for the first time. On that occasion he took photos of such subjects as Mt. Askja, Mt. Herðubreið, the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon and Grímsey island off the north coast, on the Arctic Circle. Iceland, like North Dakota, is a land of wide open spaces. That year he held a show, Homeplaces, in collaboration with well-known Icelandic photographer Guðmundur Ingólfsson. Each had visited and photographed the “homeplaces” of the other: Wayne in Iceland, Guðmundur in North Dakota.  

Wayne's photographs conjure up past and present simultaneously, and over the years Wayne’s  pictures have documented the marks left on the landscape by man. 

In Wayne’s pictures, the horizon is always visible. He shuns the spectacular and the artificial to focus on the concrete, tangible place: at first on his home territory in North Dakota, and later in Iceland, where he believed he might find something he had not discovered before. Hence he may be said to have gone in search of his roots through photography. His photographs conjure up past and present simultaneously, and over the years Wayne’s  pictures have documented the marks left on the landscape by man. By expressing a sense of place and heritage for future generations, this photographer may truly be said to have captured his own feelings and vision of the land.

Wayne Gudmundson│A Considered View

Icelandic-American Wayne Gudmundson has for many years had a fine reputation for his landscapes.

Wayne Gud­mund­son│A Con­sidered View

Icelandic-American Wayne Gudmundson has for many years had a fine reputation for his landscapes.

Wayne Gudmundson│A Considered View