Essi Kuokkanen joins Galerie Anhava

Galerie Anhava is delighted to announce the representation of Finnish artist Essi Kuokkanen (born 1991).

Kuokkanen’s paintings speak of sensitivity, introspection and sympathy. Their figures are often focused on their own thoughts with a downward, melancholy gaze. In her works the visible world and its norms are questioned, giving nature and everyday goods a human aspect. Beneath the sometimes humorous surface lies solemnity and depth. Kuokkanen perceives her creative process as a circular movement, where images, painting and text turn into one another and into something strange. For her the various stages of the work, such as mixing the paint and the sound that it produces all establish their own meanings.

Essi Kuokkanen lives and works in Helsinki. She graduated as Master of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2020. Kuokkanen has held solo exhibitions in recent years at Galerie Anhava (2020), Galleria Live (2019) and Project Room (2018), and her works have been on display at group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Kuokkanen’s works are included in the collections of the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, the Finnish State Art Commission, Finnish Art Society, Saastamoinen Foundation, Wihuri Collection and Rovaniemi Art Museum. She has been awarded by Finnish Cultural Foundation (2020), the Paulo Foundation (2020) Finnish Art Society (2019).