Eeva-Leena Eklund joins Galerie Anhava

Galerie Anhava is happy to announce the representation of Finnish artist Eeva-Leena Eklund!

Eeva-Leena Eklund’s art draws its subject matter from everyday events and observations, as well as from personal collections built up over many years. Eklund seeks, selects and organises small, mundane items and objects discarded as kitsch. These are themes that she returns to again and again in her paintings. Her enthusiasm, affection and caring remain untainted by cynicism or calculation and feel fresh, even defiant in this day and age. Eklund’s signature salon-style hanging, consisting of paintings, photographs and objects, is like an unruly yet purposeful string of associations, or like a layered candy cane: you don’t tear into it hungrily with your teeth but instead, take your time to savour it.

Eeva-Leena Eklund (b. 1972, Pori) lives and works in Helsinki. Eklund has exhibited her work in many solo and group exhibitions, including Monitoimitila_O, SIC Gallery, Galleria Sculptor, and the Helsinki, Oulu and Turku Art Museums. Her first solo exhbition at Galerie Anhava took place in 2023. She has work in several major collections, including those of the HAM Helsinki Art Museum, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, the Wäinö Aaltonen Museum and the Finnish State Art Collection. In 2020, Eklund was the first Finnish artist to be invited to create an extensive solo show in the InCollection series by EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art and Saastamoinen Foundation.

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Photo: Courtesy of the artist

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Kari Vehosalo on view in Paris

Works by Kari Vehosalo are on view in Being-There group exhibition at Le Clézio Gallery in Paris. The exhibition runs until 25 January 2025.

“Humans, always oriented toward the future, inevitably confront the reality of their finitude. This tension between infinite aspiration and the limits of life often creates a sense of impatience. For the philosopher Martin Heidegger, the key lies in fully accepting our ephemeral nature, in “being-there” (Dasein) — either by living authentically, embracing our impermanence, or inauthentically, by fleeing from this reality.

For Vehosalo, ‘Being There’ means perceiving reality and truth differently, shaped by our desires, culture, and unconscious mind. In front of vast landscapes and interior scenes marked by gaping black holes, his almost photographic paintings immerse our gaze in mystery, uncertainty, and fragility.”

Image: Kari Vehosalo, The Past is a Gaping Hole III, 2023, oil on copper, 18 x 15 cm. Photo: Erno Enkenberg

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Aho, Eklund, Niva and Slotte at Turku Art Museum

Works by Heini Aho, Eeva-Leena Eklund, Jussi Niva and Joel Slotte are included in Turku Art Museum’s What (a) Colour exhibition. Showcasing over 60 works by 40 artists, the exhibition features works from the collection of Turku Art Museum and explores how to interpret the meaning of colour in visual art.

The selected works highlight the colour palettes typical of different eras, colour theories, material research, as well as the cultural, symbolic and emotional dimensions of colours. The exhibition brings together paintings, graphic art, photography, moving image and sculpture, all of which illuminate the essence of colour in their own ways.

Alongside the museum’s own acquisitions, works from the collections of Nils Dahlström, the Friends of Turku Art Museum and Lars Göran Johnsson are included, as well as an acquisition from the latest subcollection, Collection Lieto Savings Bank Foundation.

Image: Jussi Niva, I Spy With My Eyes Something Being As Indigo, 1994. Photo: Jussi Tiainen

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Heini Aho’s solo exhibition in Turku

Heini Aho’s solo exhibition Parting (Jakaus) is on view at Kilta Gallery, a new exhibition space in Turku which continues WAM Turku City Art Museum’s exhibition program while the museum building is under renovation. In the exhibition consisting of sculptures, installations and media works, Heini Aho observes the distribution, partitioning and segregation suggested by the name of the exhibition, expanding to reflect, for example, on the many meanings of the concept. Aho examines everyday matters and objects that we take for granted and their use from a new perspective. The works convey wonder and the need to explore, but there is also a bit of humor in them.

The exhibition runs until 2.2.2025.

Image: Courtesy of WAM Turku City Art Museum

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Joel Slotte joins Galerie Anhava

Galerie Anhava is excited to announce the representation of Finnish artist Joel Slotte!

In the restless fantasies of Joel Slotte’s paintings, we see complex underdogs, bruised thinkers and weary revellers. The features in the (self)portraits are rugged, the gazes inaccessible, yet relatable. Moving effortlessly from lush gardens and shabby bike sheds, to the murkiness of art history, or the gates of a cemetery, Slotte’s rich symbolic scenes are dense with meaning – the medieval armors, plant mythology, squirming tattoos and jagged death metal logos serve as markers to the characters’ mindscapes. Moving from large canvases to smaller, coloured pencil drawings, Slotte’s palette becomes even more acidic, details more staggering, and the figures more fantastical.

Joel Slotte (b. 1987, Kokkola) lives and works in Helsinki. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2016. In 2021, Slotte was elected the Young Artist of the Year. His work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, most recently at HAM Helsinki Art Museum (2024); Turku Art Museum (2024), Finlandsinstitutets galleri, Stockholm (2023); and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki (2022). In addition to private collections in Finland, Sweden and Denmark, Slotte’s works have been acquired by major public collections, including the art museums of Helsinki, Tampere, Turku and Kuopio, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and the Pro Artibus Foundation.

Slotte’s first solo exhibition at Galerie Anhava took place in August 2024.
Learn more about the artist and find Slotte’s available works via our Artist page.

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Antti Laitinen in Denmark

In Denmark, Antti Laitinen takes part in Silkeborg Bad’s group exhibition Feel the Space of the Forest. The 11 represented artists of different nationalities have different approaches to the phenomenon of forest: as memory, botanical site, climate maintainer, CO2 absorber, as a place for activism, as sacred and a place for contemplation. The exhibition gives the viewer the opportunity to think about and appreciate the part of our surroundings that is the forest.

For his work Forest Square III (2013) Laitinen removed a 10 x 10 meter piece of forest and sorted it into it’s different materials: soil, moss, wood, pines, etc. He then rebuilt this piece of forest and arranged the different materials by colour.

The exhibition runs until 12 January 2025.

Image: Antti Laitinen, Forest Square III, 2013, C-print

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Mari Sunna’s solo show in Beijing

Mari Sunna’s solo exhibition Revolving Around the Regression Line has opened at the CLC Gallery Venture in Beijing, China.

“Mari’s introspection of the body is both intimate and spiritual, and through interpretation, it transforms into symmetrical patterns of emotional fluctuations, distorted human forms, and ambiguous totems of symbolism and iconography. Every detail and fragment of her shifts between the structures of reason and sensibility are mirrored on the canvas. The efforts of her search, mixed with low-frequency screams and howls, give the imagery an eerie aspect. The colors, imbued with a cult-like quality, exude a subtle unease even in their brightness, while the fluid forms shifting between chaos and clarity impart a complex psychological intensity to her work.” –Junyao Chen, Curator

The exhibition runs until 8 December 2024.

Image: Mari Sunna, Untitled, 2024, oil on canvas, 111 x 81 cm. Photo: Courtesy of CLC

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Kari Vehosalo at Vantaa Art Museum Artsi

Kari Vehosalo takes part in Vantaa Art Museum Artsi’s Intertwined worlds exhibition, with artist Rebecca Louise Law, IC-98, Satu Autero and Emma Helle. The artworks in the exhibition explore nature through immersion, wonder, disappearance and adventure, taking the viewer on an exploration of nature and ourselves. The exhibition is on show until 2 March 2025, and is part of the 50th anniversary celebrations of the City of Vantaa.

Image: Kari Vehosalo, Passage, 2023, oil and coal dust on canvas, 180 x 137 cm. Photo: Erno Enkenberg

Elina Merenmies’s solo exhibition at Turku Art Museum

Elina Merenmies’s solo exhibition Everything Shows opened at Turku Art Museum and runs until 12 January 2025. The artist’s dreamlike world is a mixture of inner visions and real events. References to art history and religious imagery are an integral part of her artistic expression. Merenmies’s deep relationship with nature and empathy for all living things are reflected in her choice of subject matter. Close-ups of human faces are a central and recurring theme, while mystical forests, trees, branches and roots are a constant source of fascination for the artist. The exhibition consists of paintings and drawings from the artist’s own collection as well as from private and public collections, completed over the past decade. A new publication on Merenmies’s art will be published in conjuction to the exhibition.

Image: Elina Merenmies, Kaikki näkyy, 2023, tempera and oil on canvas, 31 x 38 cm. Photo: Jussi Tiainen

Cavén, Dahlgren, Hautala, Kujasalo and Rannikko at Hämeenlinna Art Museum

Works by Kari Cavén, Jacob Dahlgren, Jorma Hautala, Matti Kujasalo and Vesa-Pekka Rannikko are on view as part of Hämeenlinna Art Museum’s collection exhibition Abstracting the ordinary – Art from the everyday. The newly opened exhibition runs until 13 April 2025.

At the core of the exhibition is the Niemistö Art Collection, on long-term deposit to the museum, which comprises Finnish and Nordic art from the 1950s to the present day. With a focus on abstract, or nonfigurative, art, on display are paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations, drawings, graphics and media art by 36 artists. The exhibition is curated by Tanja Pääskynen.

“Reducing the subject to a series of visual elements, to forms, colours, rhythms and compositional patterns, allows the viewer to leave the figurative behind and to focus on their own experience, to become immersed in the artwork.”

Image: Vesa-Pekka Rannikko, Paauat, 2017, pigmented plaster. Photo: Jussi Tiainen

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Works by Antti Laitinen at Museum Centre Taika

Works by Antti Laitinen are on view at Museum Centre Taika in Hyvinkää, as part of a group exhibition Ääri. The exhibition brings together four Finnish contemporary artists: Laitinen, Petri Eskelinen, Juhana Moisander and Taneli Rautiainen. Including moving images, photographs and interactive works, the exhibition deals with different kinds of tensions and extreme phenomena, especially extreme natural events: the moments when nature shows its power, or changes from familiar and safe to threatening or scary. Ääri explores how art can be used to create experiences that make people feel small in front of nature. The exhibition runs until 12 January 2025.
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Image: Antti Laitinen, Wanderer, 2024, video, 7 min 21 sec

New public work by Heini Aho unveiled

Heini Aho’s new public artwork Washed Ashore by a Thought was unveiled in Helsinki. The 5-piece work is spread amongst the small pier platforms surrounding Sompasaari in Kalasatama. Based on her observations of the area, Aho created the works suggesting various ways to engage with the landscape. Aho’s sculptural elements combine with texts she created in collaboration with poet Virpi Vairinen. The works, curated by HAM Helsinki Art Museum, will be added to the City of Helsinki’s art collection.

Aho noticed that people often stand on the pier platform alone, watching the sea. In Breath, a shell holds small objects and is accompanied by an engraved image of bladderwrack and the line, “Ajatus kutsuu luokseen toista” (“A thought invites another”).

Heat Reaction – The Island of the Eternal Yawn asks: where is the line between catching a yawn and spreading them? A tiger paw print reminds us of the Siberian tiger that lives in Korkeasaari zoo on the island opposite the platform.

In Elevating, a palm holds a shell. The Finnish line “aallon laella haahka kahlaa vaahto haihtuu aava vaihtuu” (“on the crest of the wave, an eider wades, foam dissipates, a sea changes”) plays phonetically and visually with the movement of the sea waves.

Energy Islet – Monument to Carbon Black comprises of the charred remains of logs engraved with the colour code for carbon black (0,0,0). The monument pays tribute to the various shades of black and carbon’s enormous significance for life on Earth.

Little Hylkysaari Island toys with the idea of an urban recycling and lost-and-found station. It refers to the nearby Hylkysaari – Shipwreck Island in English – and the treasures washed up by the sea.

Photo: Heini Aho

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Santeri Tuori at Fotografiska Tallinn

Works by Santeri Tuori are featured in Fotografiska Tallinn’s exhibition In Bloom, among works by 17 artists from around the world. The exhibition highlights nature through the medium of contemporary photography and video art, offering a glimpse into its portrayal in today’s art. It is a symbolic-philosophical exploration of the sublime nature, of the reconstructed, guided and controlled environment, and of the untouched wilderness of nature.

Tuori’s work is characterized by the logic of layeredness, covering and revealing, with individual works consisting of several layers of images. The layers translucently visible through each other contain both black and white and colour photographs.

In Bloom is curated by Jessica Jarl and Maarja Loorents, and was previously seen at Fotofrafiska New York and Stockholm. The exhibition runs until 27 October 2024.

Image: Santeri Tuori, Forest 44, 2019, archival pigment print

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Jani Ruscica nominated for Ars Fennica 2025 prize

Jani Ruscica has been nominated as one of the candidates for Finland’s most significant fine art prize, Ars Fennica! The award is presented annually to a visual artist in recognition of distinctive artistic work of high merit. A joint exhibition showcasing the nominees’ works will be on display at HAM Helsinki Art Museum from 24 October 2025, to 15 March 15 2026. The winner 2025, selected by Mami Kataoka, director of the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, will be announced in the spring of 2026.

“Jani Ruscica works across mediums of moving and printed image, sculpture and performance. Central to the artist’s practice is the slippage and simultaneity of meaning animated by forms that move, stretch, shape-shift, and exceed the borders of time, space, and bodies. Working with fragmentary signs or images we think we already know, Ruscica deploys the pseudo-familiar to undermine immediate legibility in favour of precarious, improvisational processes.” –Camilla Granbacka

Photo: Diana Luganski

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Essi Kuokkanen in Cologne

Essi Kuokkanen takes part in a duo exhibition Regular Volley with artist Björn Knapp, at La Felce gallery in Cologne, Germany. The exhibition runs until 29 September 2024. Regular Volley deals with emerging feelings and with what might happen when we allow them to come and take over. In Essi Kuokkanen’s paintings bodies intertwine, a dog supports someone through what seems like a turbulent phase, and something new grows out of a puddle of tears.

Image: Essi Kuokkanen, Emotional Support, 2024, oil on canvas, 78 x 60 cm. Photo: Eetu Huhtanen

Jorma Hautala and Matti Kujasalo in Norway

In Kristiansand, Norway, Jorma Hautala and Matti Kujasalo are featured in Kunstsilo’s collection exhibition Passions of the North. Kunstsilo museum is a newly opened, former grain silo that houses the Tangen Collection, comprising over 5,000 works amassed over 25 years by Nicolai Tangen. The collection is said to be the largest and most important collection of Nordic modernist art from the period 1910-1990. Now, over 600 works from the collection are showcased, taking the viewer on a journey through Nordic art of the 20th century. The exhibition is curated by Åsmund Thorkildsen.

“It’s hard to pinpoint why, but I like the universal abstract language in Concrete Art. It doesn’t tell you what you are looking at, or are meant to understand, but instead challenges you to think and feel.” – Nicolai Tangen

Image: Matti Kujasalo, Untitled (1989). Tangen Collection.

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Jorma Puranen in Tampere

Works by Jorma Puranen are on view as part of The Beauty of Moments exhibition, alongside photographs by Ulla Jokisalo and Pentti Sammallahti. The exhibition features works dating from the 1970’s up until the recent years, and runs until 15 September 2024 at Eemil Aaltonen’s Museum in Tampere.

“The beauty of a photograph might be about enabling us to take a closer look at those moments, which are mercilessly bypassed by the normal passage of time. Beauty is also about exposure to the world and submission to it, the expanded relationship between the self and the world.”

The works of the three photographers in the exhibition are recordings of these encounters with the world. They express intimacy and provide understanding of the porousness of the human boundaries.
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Jorma Puranen, Forest in Rain, 2013, archival pigment print, diasec

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Meet the Artist: Joel Slotte

Welcome to meet artist Joel Slotte on Saturday 24 August, from 1 to 3 pm!
Right before the final week of his solo exhibition A Kiss at the Cemetery Gate, Slotte will be present at the gallery to discuss and answer questions about his artistic practice and his gently ferocious works.

The event is free.
Tervetuloa | Välkommen | Welcome!

Marko Vuokola’s retrospective solo exhibition in Turku

Marko Vuokola’s retrospective solo exhibition Sense and Sensibility at Aboa Vetus Ars Nova in Turku showcases the artist’s works from the last 30 years.

“Vuokola’s unassuming and thoughtful works create a space for sharpening of the senses. The works subtly lead you to contemplate – and thus to figure it out for yourself.
This minimalist exhibition of photographs, video art and sculptures focuses on temporality and repetition. Vuokola’s analytical and human approach offers the viewer insights large and small – without forgetting beauty.”

– Niina Tanskanen, Curator

Sense and Sensibility runs until 15 September 2024.

Marko Vuokola, Spaceliner I, 2013, archival pigment print, Diasec, 2x 32 x 32 cm

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Karoliina Hellberg in London

Karoliina Hellberg’s first solo exhibition in the UK, titled Labyrinth, opens at Elizabeth Xi Bauer gallery in London on Saturday 7 June. Hellbergs vibrant works in oil, acrylic and ink, immerse the viewer in a world of repeated imagery, signs, and symbols, a labyrinth of spaces and places, combining layers, forms, and elements. She blends dream-like visions and narratives that merge the everyday with the ethereal, painting the space between memories and fantasies.

“Spaces and moods in my paintings have been influenced by the environment in which I grew up and the kind of places I feel to be important…spaces in [my] paintings are collages of metaphysical and psychological elements, they do not just reflect just one place or experience’’, Hellberg says.

The exhibition runs until 3 August 2024.
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Karoliina Hellberg, You keep coming back in, 2024, oil, acrylic and ink on canvas. Photo: Jussi Tiainen

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Meet the Artist: Anna Tuori

Welcome to meet artist Anna Tuori on Saturday 25 May, from 1 to 3 pm! Before the final week of her solo exhibition Calling for the Future to Return Tuori will be present at the gallery to discuss and answer questions about her artistic practice and her latest exhibition, full of meanings and observations, fickle figures and masterful compositions. Tervetuloa | Välkommen | Welcome!

Anne-Karin Furunes at Vigelandmuseet

For her solo exhibition Visiting at the Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Anne-Karin Furunes has chosen a selection of her paintings from the last ten years. The basic element of Furunes’ art is a photograph, usually a small picture found in an archive. These photographs are transformed by perforation into images on canvas with light-permeable surfaces. The perforation creates a lively visual, kinetic moment giving light and life to the portraits. The exhibition runs until 19 May.

“The scale is often monumental, as if to highlight that the portrayed persons are now being given the focus that was previously denied to them. Their lives were often tragic, due to historical events, but also through personal misfortunes or social exclusion.” – Maaretta Jaukkuri

Image: Anne-Karin Furunes, Vigelandmuseet. Photo: Øystein Thorvaldsen

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Meet the Artist: Noora Schroderus

Welcome to meet artist Noora Schroderus on Saturday 27 April, from 1 to 3 pm! Right before the final week of her solo exhibition M.O. Schroderus will be present at the gallery to discuss and answer questions about her creative practice, techniques and ideas behind the suprising, conceptual and humorous sculptures.

Warmly welcome!

Cavén, Hiltunen, Kujasalo, Merenmies, Rannikko, Sunna and Vehosalo at Amos Rex

Works by Kari Cavén, Heli Hiltunen, Matti Kujasalo, Elina Merenmies, Vesa-Pekka Rannikko, Mari Sunna and Kari Vehosalo are featured in art museum Amos Rex’s new collection exhibition I feel, for now, running through 8 September 2024.

The title of the exhibition refers not only to Kari Cavén’s ambiguous artwork with the same name, but also to the fluidity and transient nature of emotions. Presenting over 100 artworks from 76 artists, I feel, for now carries the viewer from isolation to empathy, from ecstasy to nostalgia. The exhibition is curated by Kai Kartio, Krista Mamia, Kaj Martin and Katariina Timonen.
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Image: Kari Cavén, Musta tuntuu, toistaiseksi, 1990. Photo: Stella Ojala / Amos Rex

Marko Vuokola in Tampere

Works by Marko Vuokola are on view at Gallery Himmelblau in Tampere alongside works of Tuomas Korkalo and Jyrki Siukonen. MOTUS, the artist group formed by the three artists first gathered in 2017 in Lisbon. In the pieces shown at Galleria Himmelblau, MOTUS primarily works with colour and light, making use of the Finlayson area’s atmospheric spaces. The exhibition opens 13 April and runs until 12 May 2024.

Image: Marko Vuokola, Peilaus, 2024, copper sheets. Detail: Vesa Viljakainen

Elina Merenmies at HAM Helsinki Art Museum

Elina Merenmies’s Naamio is view in Bambi Forever! exhibition at HAM Helsinki Art Museum, running until 19 January 2025. The exhibition features Finnish painting, graphic art and photography spanning from the 1990s to the present, reflecting on the complexities and contradictions of what it means to be human. The artworks are from a collection donated to HAM by Raimo and Maarit Huttunen, who ran Bakeliittibambi Gallery from 1996 to 2007.

Image: Elina Merenmies, Naamio, 2009–2013, ink on paper, 31 x 24 cm. Photo: Jussi Tiainen

Cavén, Dahlgren, Guðmundsson, Hautala, Kujasalo and Niva at EMMA

Works by Kari Cavén, Jacob Dahlgren, Kristján Guðmundsson, Jorma Hautala, Matti Kujasalo and Jussi Niva are featured in Experiments in Concretism exhibition at EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art. The exhibition aims to take a fresh look at the long tradition of concretism and its contemporary variations with works by over 50 artists, presenting the many facets of the art movement, and highlighting the expressivity and playfulness of various materials. The featured works are curated from EMMA’s collections, some of which acquired or commissioned especially for the exhibition. The exhbition also celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lars-Gunnar ‘Nubben’ Nordström (1924–2014), a pioneer of Finnish concretism and geometrical abstractionism.

Experiments in Concretism runs until 2 March 2025.
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Image:
Jacob Dahlgren: Heaven is a Place on Earth, 2018, digital scales
Experiments in Concretism © Ari Karttunen / EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art

Solo exhibition by Anna Tuori in Paris

In Paris, Anna Tuori’s solo exhibition En appelant l’avenir à revenir at Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve runs until 9 March 2024.

 

“Puddles, distortions, and dilutions are mixed with more precise, held forms, notably panels that obstruct space and indicate that the scene is far from fixed and clearly delineated. Tuori’s pictorial gestures coexist with evocations of several creative moments: rapid, tender, urgent, concentrated. In addition to challenging the dichotomous idea that expressionist painting comes from the heart and conceptual painting from the brain, these diverse gestures transcribe the spirit of dislocated time.” –Elora Weill-Engerer

Photo : Rebecca Fanuele | Courtesy of Suzanne Tarasieve

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Meet the artist: Vesa-Pekka Rannikko

Welcome to meet the artist Vesa-Pekka Rannikko on Saturday 3 February, from 1 to 3 pm! On the final weekend of his solo exhibition Plenty, Rannikko will be present at the gallery to discuss and answer questions about his creative practice, inspirations and ideas behind his playful sculptural hybrids and vibrant animations. Warmly welcome!

Anne Koskinen in Cologne

In Cologne, Anne Koskinen takes part in Galerie Werner Klein’s international group exhbition The direct view.  The exhbition showcases works “without glass or frames” by 20 artists, aiming to share that same special, direct and clear view that is usually found while visiting an artist’s studio. The exhibition runs until 24 February 2024.


Image: Anne Koskinen, Missä näitä kasvaa? (Köln), 2024, silverpoint and oil on canvas, 25 x 20 cm

Jani Ruscica on view at Kiasma’s new collection exhibition

Jani Ruscica’s video piece Beginning an Ending (2009) is on view at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki as part of a new collection exhibition Feels Like Home, running until 12 January 2025. All artworks in the exhibition are from the collections of the Finnish National Gallery.

The exhibition reflects on the theme of home and belonging through contemporary art. The featured artworks show that home can be a physical place, a community, or a state of mind. They reach out not only to the past but to the future as well. In Ruscica’s work, seven amateur actors morph the blank canvas of the film studio into a temporary stage for their visions of the future. The seven variations on the future and the eventual end of time reflect how history and the past as well as the imagery mediated by the media and popular culture shape our notions about the future.

Image: Jani Ruscica, Beginning an Ending, 2009, 16mm film transferred to digital beta and HD, stereo sound, 16’33”, loop

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