At this year’s Market Art Fair in Stockholm, Helsinki Contemporary presents a curated booth with paintings by Aki Turunen and Emma Ainala and sculptures by Roland Persson.
All three artists, while using different media and subject matter, work with themes related to fantasy, mysticism and surrealism, and reference art history. Strong relation to the mystery of the human experience is the common thread connecting the artists' practices.
Helsinki Contemporary’s fair booth number 10 can be found at Liljevalchs konsthall (address: Djurgårdsvägen 60, Falkenbergsgatan 3, 115 21, Stockholm) during Market Art Fair 2024 from Friday until Sunday May 17–19, 2024. Market Art Fair is open on Friday 15–19, on Saturday 11–18, and on Sunday 11–17.
Artists
Emma Ainala (b. 1989, Finland) is known for her intricate paintings that explore the mythologies of femininity and different interior spaces, both physical and digital – some even imagined. The human body and its ambivalent gestures and expressions are at the center of her works. Looking, being looked at, and objectification, are recurring themes in her work. Her surrealistic paintings are grounded in the phenomena of the present day but also contain references to art history. Sometimes she might combine allusions to the mystical worlds of the Renaissance painter Hieronymus Bosch and reference hyper-specific TikTok trends in one and the same painting.
In Aki Turunen’s (b. 1983, Finland) paintings, subliminal and intuitive images flirt with art history. By combining personal narratives with images drawn from history and folklore, Turunen explores the collective human experience. In his new tempera, pastel and watercolour works Turunen has drawn inspiration from Gothic sculpture, the Verona Cathedral, and the flags of the old city-states of the areas of Tuscany and Marche, among other things. The recurring imagery in the works, such as moons, dragons, crusades, and princes courting each other, at the same time echo and reinterpret both history and fairy tales.
Roland Persson (b. 1963, Sweden) is known for his life-like silicone sculptures that contemplate the relationship between human and nature and the way we implement a variety of meanings to nature. While Persson uses mostly plants and animals as the source of his sculptures and drawings, the works can at times be also modeled after elements from a human environment, like industrial machinery, vases or electrical cabinets. Persson’s sculptures often nod to the tradition of still lifes, and, at times, even the memento mori.
Market Art Fair is one of the leading contemporary art fairs in the Nordic region. Market Art Fair 2024 takes place between 17 and 19 May, 2024, in Stockholm, Sweden. This year, altogether 47 galleries will showcase over 100 artists at Liljevalchs konsthall and Spritmuseum with a strong focus on Nordic artists.
Read more: https://marketartfair.com/
For press materials and interview requests, please contact communications manager Jaakko Uoti, tel. +358 50 554 8884, or jaakko.uoti@helsinkicontemporary.com
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