Liisa Pesonen
Same But Different
Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki
February 21 – March 23, 2025
Liisa Pesonen’s new paintings feature recurring motifs vaguely reminiscent of a vase. In terms of content, they can be interpreted as inheriting the legacy of still life painting. Despite their identifiable subject, most of Pesonen’s paintings are centered on structural elements, such as the dynamic relationship between lines, planes, forms and colors. That said, the artist never treats her paintings as pure studies of form, but rather as an inquiry into the meanings that emerge from interactions of compositional elements.
Pesonen’s paintings are variations of an ongoing dialogue played out between the subject and the background. What the artist initially conceives as a vase might be transformed into a rectangle or a linear configuration. Her paintings are characterized by their seemingly endless alternation between representation and abstraction, dialogues between static form and dynamic drawn lines, and interplays of spontaneous expression and meticulous control. At the heart of her practice, she often returns to the same question: Where exactly is the subject located in the painting? Is it the representational form of the vase, or is it hidden in the textures of the drawn lines? Even when the subject is a recognizable object, Liisa Pesonen never exclusively depicts the object for its own sake, but rather as an interpretation of something that can only be expressed through the language of painting or drawing. Sometimes her vases are like anthropomorphic figures that briefly leap off the background, only to disappear again the next moment.
Liisa Pesonen (b. 1962) is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, and her work is represented in many private and public collections, including those of the City of Helsinki, the State Art Deposit Collection, the City of Jyväskylä, Wihuri Foundation and Pori Art Museum. She has had many solo exhibitions and she has participated in group exhibitions at the Lönnström Art Museum, Pori Art Museum, and the Mänttä Art Festival.
GALERIE FORSBLOM
Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki
