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