Joel Slotte nominated for Ars Fennica 2027

Joel Slotte has been nominated as one of the four candidates for Ars Fennica 2027, the most significant fine art prize in the Nordic countries. Presented every two years by the Niemistö Art Foundation Ars Fennica, the award recognises artistic excellence and a distinctive creative vision. This year, the winner will be selected by an international art expert, curator, writer and cultural strategist Fatoş Üstek. A joint exhibition of the nominees’ works will take place at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, in Helsinki, between 15 October 2027 – 26 March 2028. The winner will be announced in February 2028. Following its presentation at Kiasma, the exhibition will travel to Kunstsilo in Kristiansand, Norway.

Photo: Pirje Mykkänen

Meet the Artist: Inka Bell

On Saturday 22 August, at 13.00–15.00, Inka Bell will be at the gallery to answer questions and discuss her solo exhibition Edestakas | To and Fro, on view until 30 August!

Tervetuloa | Välkommen | Welcome!

Inka Bell’s artistic practice is a seamless movement between technique, material, and motif, exploring liminal spaces between two- and three-dimensionality. Her paper based works are subtle events of transition, repetition, and transformation where two surfaces come together again and again.

Inka Bell (b. 1981, Espoo) graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Printmaking Department of the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki in 2021. In recent years Bell has held numerous solo exhibitions, including at Turku Art Museum, Bricks Gallery in Copenhagen, and Forum Box in Helsinki. Her works have been acquired for several public collections in the United States, Denmark, Belgium, and Finland, including EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, HAM Helsinki Art Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. In 2024, Bell received the William Thuring Grand Prize awarded by the Finnish Art Society.

Photo: Paavo Lehtonen

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Joel Slotte on view in London

Joel Slotte will take part in Autopsy group exhibition at Seventeen Gallery in London, between 10 July – 14 August 2026. The show features Finnish artists and artist groups, as well as international names from the field of visual art, painting, sculpture, video and performance. The exhibition is curated by Joey Holder.

 

“The exhibition emerges at a moment when the relationship between evidence and belief has fundamentally collapsed. We live in a world where verifiable facts no longer determine what people accept as ‘true’, where competing realities circulate with equal authority, and where the mechanisms that once separated truth from fiction have dissolved into contested narratives. (…) Autopsy directly examines this moment by bringing together artists to consider not only the content of contemporary anomaly discourse, but also the mechanisms by which beliefs are constructed.”

Image: Joel Slotte, Still Life Painter Putting Together a Vanitas Motif, 2026, oil on canvas, framed, 73,5 x 68 cm. Photo: Jussi Tiainen

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