Emma Helle @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Dress Codes for Rivers" Exhibition

Emma Helle: Dress Codes for Rivers

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

March 28 – May 4, 2025

Emma Helle has drawn inspiration for the reclining figures in her new sculptures from personified river deities she has encountered on her travels, most recently in Roman fountains. Like many cities, Rome was founded on a river, for flowing water is literally the source of all life, but also a symbolic fount of fertility and prosperity. Throughout history, rivers have transported not only people and goods, but also thoughts and new ideas. Rome’s fountains pay tribute to the river running through the city and to the life-sustaining power of water.

In ancient Greek mythology, the father of all rivers was Oceanus, a bearded man with bull horns. Oceanus lost one horn in battle, which became the mythical horn of plenty, symbol of fertility and abundance. In Helle’s sculptures, the horn of plenty has emptied its contents all over the voluptuous, hedonistic figures, which are decked in flowers, vines, fruit, gilding and all manner of lavish details. The figures defy categorization, blending inseparably with their surroundings. Shaped from clay transported by flowing water, they are raw, imperfect, and coarsely textured, yet their surfaces shimmer in vibrant colors. They proclaim freedom and the right to revel in their inherent materiality.

Throughout art history, exotic fruits and plants have symbolized abundance, but also wealth and power. Helle’s sculptures seem to question what these symbols mean today, as they are are available to everyone on supermarket shelves. How have visual symbols of wealth and abundance changed in modern times, and who ultimately has the right to wield them?

Emma Helle (b.1979) is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts. Her work is held in collections including HAM Helsinki Art Museum Ham, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the State Art Deposit Collection, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Saastamoinen Foundation and Wihuri Foundation. She recently held a solo exhibition at Turku Art Museum, and she has participated in group exhibitions at the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the National Museum in Stockholm, Mänttä Art Festival, Helsinki Art Hall and EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Emma Helle @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Walking Lake, Burning Heart" Exhibition

Emma Helle 

Walking Lake, Burning Heart

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

November 24, 2023 – January 7, 2024

Two kinds of metamorphosis take place in EMMA HELLE’s latest sculptures: the human figures stand motionless, perhaps on the verge of turning into trees, while the landscape-like clouds and bushes have sprouted limbs as if they were attempting to carry the space. The static figures stand watch like gentle sentinels, benevolently protecting and caring for everything around them. The physical contours of the dynamic figures meanwhile melt and fluidly coalesce with their surroundings. The clouds may drift and the landscape may change, but the movements of the mind follow the wanderer. The rippling lake is an emotional landscape with an irresistible pull.

Lush, thriving vegetation entwines itself around human figures in Emma Helle’s sculptures. The plants cling to the space and the figures, supporting them and themselves being supported. Humankind and nature coexist in perfect synergy, nurturing each other. The sculptures hark back to prehistoric times before humans upset the balance of nature. Emma Helle’s sculptures pose the question: Could a new balance be regained in the post-Anthropocene?

The luxuriant figures in the sculptures serve as reminders of the ongoing flow of life. Referencing art history, their voluptuous corporeality slides from masculine to feminine, while their free flow and abandonment of defined contours anchor them in the contemporary moment. Their entangled symbiosis foregrounds the diversity of human relationships. Is friendship ultimately so very different from a love relationship?

EMMA HELLE (b. 1979) graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts and her work is found in private collections as well as the collections of HAM Helsinki Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the State Art Deposit Collection, the Sara Hildén Art Museum, Saastamoinen Foundation, Wihuri Foundation and Pro Artibus. She has held numerous solo exhibitions at venues including Turku Art Museum, and she has participated in group exhibitions at the Boston Museum of Fine Art, Stockholm’s National Museum, the Mänttä Festival, Kunsthalle Helsinki and EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22 - 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Emma Helle @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - Manque

Emma Helle: Manque

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

14 May – 6 June 2021

EMMA HELLE’s (b.1979) latest sculptures express the artist’s longing to visit places she is unable to go and her desire to be reunited with loved ones distant or departed, as summed up by the title Manque, from the French 'manquer', meaning ‘to miss’. One of the places the artist especially longs to visit again is Paris, whose rich art history is invoked by her new sculptures. Their details evoke echoes of real places including the decorative doors of the Notre Dame, the spiral pillars of the Church of Saint-Séverin, and the sculpted deities of the Pilier des nautes. 

As part of her creative process, Emma Helle often studies and draws sketches of existing works from art history, which might be anything from a 19th-century ornamental figurine to a classical marble sculpture. Her sculptures examine how the human body has been represented in the Western Canon of art history, which has tended to highlight certain body types while relegating others to the margins.

The artist has been working with clay since her childhood. As a young girl, she used to sculpt miniature figures from mud she found in the schoolyard. Finally, her mother decided to sign her up for pottery workshop. Today Emma Helle’s studio is found a former rubber factory, the oldest parts of which are made of clay bricks fired at the neighboring brickworks. Emma Helle’s choice of material carries new resonances when examined from a contemporary perspective. Clay is traditionally looked down upon as an artisan’s or woman’s material. In recent years, however, clay has also begun to invade galleries and other contexts of high culture, sometimes revisiting forgotten works from art history. Many contemporary sculptures evoke terracotta maquettes by Renaissance sculptors or china figurines that once graced the shelves of well-to-do upper-class homes. A similar referential tension resonates in the lumpy forms of Emma Helle’s richly detailed ceramic figures, which she combines with a sweet color scheme of pastels. 

EMMA HELLE is a graduate of the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts. Her work is found in many private and public collections, including Helsinki Art Museum HAM, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the State Art Collection, the Sara Hildén Art Museum, the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Wihuri Foundation, and the Pro Artibus collection. She has held many solo exhibitions at venues including the Turku Art Museum, and she has taken part in group exhibitions at the Mänttä Art Festival, Kunsthalle Helsinki, and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, EMMA.

GALERIE FORSBLOM 

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

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