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 Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Turku Art Museum, and EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art. She has work in numerous major Finnish collections, including the Finnish National Gallery, the State Art Deposit Collection, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Turku Art Museum, and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, as well as in many private collections in Finland, Sweden and Denmark. In 2019 Kuokkanen received the Finnish Art Society’s Ducat Prize.
I would love you in every world, 2025
oil on canvas
174 x 120 cm
In the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma Collection
Full Of Emptiness, 2024
soft pastel on paper, oak frame
83 x 89 cm
In private collection
Landscape inside, 2025
oil on canvas
173 x 120 cm
In Turku Art Museum Collection
Spanking or Pieta, 2022
oil on canvas
37 x 30 cm
In private collection
Shapeshifter Dreaming
11 Aug – 4 Sep 2022
Installation view
Big Dumdum, 2021
oil on canvas
179 x 116 cm
In Wihuri Foundation 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
Magical Thinking, 2018
charcoal on paper
23 x 23 cm
In private collection
Smart Dog, 2020
oil on canvas
60,5 x 45 cm
In Wihuri Foundation Collection
Holding a Cloud, 2020
oil on canvas
160 x 152 cm
In Saastamoinen Foundation Collection
