ANNA RETULAINEN (bits and pieces)
11.03. – 10.04.2011
It is with the greatest of pleasure that Gallery Kalhama&Piippo plays host to Anna Retulainen’s solo exhibition, (bits and pieces). Retulainen (b. 1969) makes art with deep roots in the grand tradition of painting, but her handling gives the medium new, untamed form. She plays with the shapes of paintings, and brings her attention to bear on all kinds of subjects, from details drawn from everyday life, from journeys real and imagined, or from the masterworks of art history. She paints with consideration, treating the subject with an objectivity in order to near fundamental questions emerging from the very essence of art.
Retulainen calls her new exhibition (bits and pieces). Using English as well as surrounding parentheses, she makes an ironical statement about the naming policy of contemporary art. She normally also names her paintings ambiguously, and has used parentheses in their titles throughout her entire career – and in this, there is something suggestive of her attitude towards her art. The words are a subordinated reference. Her art seems to lie somewhere in this realm of pure expression.
(bits and pieces) is a hang consisting of a carefully selected group of very different kinds of paintings. In their juxtapositions, Retulainen is asking: what is the famous ‘language of art’, or the presumed narrative of an exhibition if paintings ostensibly refuse to form a coherent sequence? How should one deal with works, each seemingly bearing its own discrete frame of reference?
Retulainen is well known to be a painter who enjoys stirring viewers’ expectations of how contemporary paintings should be read. In this exhibition she goes further; her forensic eye she seems to have turned even on herself as she confronts categorizations of herself as an artist. Many would describe her as a wild expressionist, but careful consideration pervades her work, characterized by masterly execution and her intuitive ability to see the final shape.
Paintings that give the impression of spontaneity result from a long, painstaking process. The free skate of a figure skating competition constitutes a fine allegory: because of an enormous amount of practice, the appearance to be conveyed to the viewer is one of easiness and spontaneity. A hung work too is a witness to labour and toil, but now on canvas. The allegory goes further: ice or canvas provides no second chance.
What fascinates the viewer is how Retulainen’s art is conducive to illusion. The broader the surface, the more tangible is the impression by her brush strokes of endless overlapping layers. Retulainen’s performance is ready, and we are in the middle of a presence – in the range of brush strokes, inside the material painting.
Pilvi Kalhama
