IISA MAARANEN – STONE IN A WATERING CAN
For the Navajo people, turquoise stone signifies protection. They hang a turquoise on the ceiling of their home to protect themselves from the devil.*
Iisa Maaranen‘s solo exhibition Stone in a Watering Can extends over Forum Box’s Permanto and Monttu. The exhibition consists of works thinly painted on cotton with gum arabic tempera, moving between the figurative and the abstract. The imprint of the paintings is dominated by movement and rhythm, but at the same time the atmosphere is quiet and empty.
The works show glimpses of a home milieu. The turquoise color is repeated in the paintings in the exhibition, bringing to surface the sources from which we seek refuge. The paintings pause at various small moments and are loaded with meanings.
Jars and containers in the bathroom mirror cabinet. A glowing sauna stove and a summer night’s turquoise light at the window. The same turquoise light on the phone’s flashing screen. A hand searching for another hand. An everyday chore. The shade of houseplants and a watering can.
The mood swings between light and dark like an endlessly changing landscape of emotions. The thin painting spreads on the canvas with light vortices, it thickens, searches for a reference point, changes direction and eventually escapes beyond definitions. The atmosphere wanders from presence to absence and back.
Arrival and departure. The space between home and the rest of the world. Privacy and generality. Shoes resting on the bright, soft carpet in the hallway. Courtyard path. A beast running in the darkness of the inner world – safely viewed from a window.
The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
All works of this exhibition are also displayed on our portfolio site!
*The Navajo people are an indigenous people living in the southwestern United States.
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Iisa Maaranen (b.1987) is a visual artist based in Helsinki, who graduated in 2018 with a Master’s of Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts. In her art, everyday things open up through painting to an ambiguous, mystical image. Maaranen is interested in alternative, less toxic painting methods. Recently, her main technique has been gum arabic tempera, the binder of which is a combination of dammar resin melted in linseed oil and gum arabic solution. Her previous solo exhibitions were at the Porvoo Art Hall, Galleria Katariina and B-Gallery. Maaranen’s works have also been shown in Galerie Anhava’s Emerging 2018 exhibition and Kiasma’s Crazy Love exhibition.
www.iisamaaranen.com
@iisamaaranen
MARK NISKANEN & JANI-MATTI SALO – CLARE
Three-channel sound installation, 2021
Clare is a sound installation that creates intimate moments of hypotheticals. Clare filters thoughts from a 14-year archive of tweets and organizes them according to the psychoanalyst Karen Horney’s theory of inner conflicts.
The first part of the work, Compliance, refers to the need for affection, approval, and kinship. These needs emphasize interdependence on others.
The second part of the work, Aggression, refers to the need for power, recognition, admiration, and achievement. These needs emphasize competition and hostility toward others.
The third part of the work, Detachment, refers to the need for independence, discreetness, and perfection. These needs emphasize our separation from others.
The work is named after an alter-ego created by Karen Horney, with whom she had internal conversation. As early as the 1930s, Horney described in her works the ‘idealized self’–a product of a competitive society to which no achievement brings satisfaction. 80 years later, social media is providing the stage for satisfying our thirst for perfection. Clare asks, however, whether the idealized self is worthy of pursuit.
The production of the exhibit has been supported by the Art Promotion Centre Finland.
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Mark Niskanen (b. 1991, Russia) and Jani-Matti Salo (b. 1984, Finland) create multidisciplinary installations that weave together everyday phenomena and technologies. Their work draws on their respective backgrounds in music, lens-based media, audiovisual research and scenography. The duo’s recent works have delved into the world of the senses, human interactions, memories, experiences of solitude and togetherness, and their associations with global themes. Their work takes the form of site-sensitive situations of a personal, amorphous and ephemeral nature. Niskanen & Salo have recently exhibited at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Helsinki Art Museum, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Mana Contemporary, Miami Art Week, and Art Quarter Budapest. Their newly commissioned video installation A Scene will be exhibited at Helsinki Biennial 2021.
Due to the corona situation the exhibition slot has been prolonged.
Mediabox