
For You I Will Give My Everything, 2022
oil on canvas
168 x 140 cm
In Turku Art Museum Collection
ESSI KUOKKANEN’S paintings speak of sensitivity, introspection and sympathy. They give form to unspoken yet vivid thoughts and feelings that hover on the borderline of sleep. Beneath the sometimes humorous surface lies solemnity and depth. Everything is connected, boundaries between species become fluid, the inanimate becomes alive and living creatures break apart. Kuokkanen is interested in the physicality of emotion – how events in the mind create a physical reaction in the body. The figures in her paintings and drawings are like reservoirs filled with feeling, occasionally spilling, oozing or overflowing uncontrollably.
Essi Kuokkanen (b. 1991, Pieksämäki) lives and works in Helsinki. Kuokkanen has shown her work in several solo and group exhibitions, most recently at the international ARS22 show of contemporary art in the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Galerie Anhava and EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Kuokkanen has work in numerous major Finnish collections, including those of the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, the Finnish State Art Commission, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Saastamoinen Foundation, as well as in many private collections in Finland, Sweden and Denmark. In 2019 Kuokkanen received the Finnish Art Society’s Ducat Prize.

Full Of Emptiness, 2024
soft pastel on paper, oak frame
83 x 89 cm
In private collection

Shapeshifter Dreaming
11 Aug – 4 Sep 2022
Installation view

A Resting Cloud, 2021
oil on canvas
111 x 85 cm
In private collection

Spanking or Pieta, 2022
oil on canvas
37 x 30 cm
In private collection

Milky Milky Oh So Creamy, 2022
coloured pencil on paper, framed
40 x 39,5 cm

Swirl of Insecurities, 2022
81 x 81 cm
oil on canvas
In private collection

Bad Day for a Dog Walker, 2020
oil on canvas
122 x 91 cm
In private collection

Trying to Hold the Light, 2021, 105,5 x 90 cm, oil on canvas
In private collection

Smart Dog, 2020
oil on canvas
60,5 x 45 cm
In Wihuri Foundation Collection

Lonely Lute, 2020
oil on canvas
122 x 143 cm
In private collection

Blooming Snakes
4-6 June 2020
installation view

Magical Thinking, 2018
charcoal on paper
23 x 23 cm
In private collection