Marianna Uutinen 5.3 - 11.4.2010
Kalhama&Piippo has the great pleasure to open Marianna Uutinen’s new exhibition, in which the artist again shows her strength and originality. Uutinen is one of the most important representatives of Finnish contemporary painting. In her new work the painterly is combined with the sculptural, the surface is merged with the background; popular themes and artificiality give space for the independency of painting. Direct, figurative references have been faded so the works don’t refer - they flow. In this sense the question of time also steps into the picture - as a memory trace or as a sense of nostalgia.
However, Uutinen’s works do not loose their here and now -spirit - the reference to the action painting that has always been highly present in her body of work. The artist herself wants the works to be ”what it feels like to live in contemporary reality”. What it feels like is something that one cannot, and what one should not, define in words.
Uutinen’s art was last seen in Finland in a three exhibitions encompassing tour at the Kunsthalle Helsinki and the Turku and Mikkeli Art Museums in 2007-2008. At the same time a retrospective book on Uutinen’s body of work was published. Uutinen made her breakthrough in the 90s. Among her most important exhibitions are the Ars ’95 exhibition, the representation in Nordic Pavillion in the Venice Biennale 1997 and several international exhibitions by foreign curators. Uutinen received the Suomi-prize in 2006 and she held the position of professor in painting at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2004-2008.
Currently Uutinen’s recent works tour in the Carnegie Art Award exhibition, the Memory Traces exhibition series in Germany and are shown in her 7th private exhibition at Galleri Lars Bohman in Stockholm. Her works will also be seen in the upcoming group exhibition ”Stressed Beauty” presenting widely Finnish contemporary art in Paris. This year Kalhama&Piippo will take Uutinen’s paintings to two contemporary art fairs, Art Paris + Guests and Art Copenhagen.
Gallery Kalhama & Piippo Contemporary