Arno Westerberg @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Soft Eyes" Exhibition

Arno Westerberg: Soft Eyes

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

September 26 – October 26, 2025

Arno Westerberg’s new exhibition explores themes of seeing and disappearing. His paintings unfold within a sharply defined moment, delving into the gaze – what we see and, above all, how we see. In his works, “ways of seeing” refers not to interpretation, but to the physical act of perception itself. The gaze is always in forever motion: roaming, sharpening. The exhibition title, Soft Eyes, is borrowed from equestrian sports, describing a peripheral gaze – broad, unfocused, yet acutely aware of its surroundings. “Soft eyes” can also suggest an emotional or infatuated look, a softened and tender way of seeing.

 

Westerberg’s painting style is minimal and gently direct, carrying an honest, incisive narrative. In his pictures, narrative is both present and absent – it hovers at the edges of the work, breathing somewhere beyond the frame. This tension lies at the heart of his practice: what is left unsaid or unseen often carries as much weight as what is revealed.

Although Westerberg’s subjects are drawn from everyday life, his works at times enter into dialogue with art history. For instance, Sofianlehto draws inspiration from a detail of Gunnar Finne’s Fact and Fable (1898), the monument to Zacharias Topelius in Helsinki’s Esplanade Park.

 

Born in 1998, ARNO WESTERBERG graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of the Arts Utrecht in 2022 and completed a master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2024. He has exhibited widely in Finland and internationally. His first solo shows were held in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and he has since participated in group exhibitions at venues including Collectie De Groen, the Academy of Fine Arts Master’s Degree Show in Helsinki, and Billytown in The Hague.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Artist Arcangelo @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Resistenza Silenziosa" Exhibition

Arcangelo

Resistenza Silenziosa

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

September 26 – October 26, 2025

Arcangelo’s art springs from a profound connection to both landscape and humanity. It emerges from a unique inner geography that transfigures the landscapes of southern Italy and Africa through memory, encounter, and embodiment. For him, Irpinia, Sannio, and the Apennines are not simply places – they are richly imbued with flesh, roots, silence, and living history. His paintings do not merely depict; they awaken, they call. Each work is a declaration of its existence.

 

Arcangelo’s expression is direct and disarming. He works in mixed media, incorporating earth, wood ash, and pigments. His materials and colors embody time and touch, telling their own stories. Each color speaks with its own voice, resonating with meaning. Nature is an enduring source of inspiration, with flowers emerging as central symbols. More than decorative motifs, they are manifestations of the soul. Each flower embodies a form of quiet resistance, offering itself as a gentle gesture to the world.

 

Born in 1956, Arcangelo Esposito – known simply as Arcangelo – is an Italian painter and sculptor. He lives and works in Milan and San Nazzaro in Irpinia, and teaches painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and began his international career in Germany and Switzerland exhibiting at leading galleries such as Tanit, Munich and Buchmann, Basel. He participated in the XI and XII Rome Quadriennale (1986, 1996) and has since exhibited widely in Europe and Asia, and his works are represented in numerous public and private collections. His major exhibitions include PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Galleria Civica in Modena and Trento, Musée d’Art Moderne in Toulouse, the MAGA Museum in Gallarate, as well as solo shows in Galerie Mazarine Variations, Paris, Galleria Marco Rossi, Milan, Turin and Verona, Fondazione Il Volume, Roma, In 2019, he presented a large-scale exhibition at MAGA and Milan Malpensa International Airport.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Marika Mäkelä @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Light of the Sand" Exhibition

Marika Mäkelä: Light of the Sand

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

September 26 – October 26, 2025

Marika Mäkelä’s new paintings take us on a journey to places both familiar and unknown. Often, it is precisely the unknown that reveals the familiar in a new light. This exhibition is a synthesis of her experiences: influences gathered from many places merge into worlds of their own. Disparate realities intersect in her work – her paintings are like cultural melting pots, where movement and insight are distilled as images.

Marika Mäkelä has spent long periods in Spain and Morocco, and the influence of these cultures is deeply embedded in her art. Her travels have left visible traces: certain shapes, colors, and qualities of light have remained with her. Spain, for instance, has inspired her interest in angular forms, in the way shapes extend beyond the canvas, and in the contrasts and encounters between materials.

Yet two elements always lie at the heart of her paintings: light and form – their observation and dissection. Her new works reveal a recent fascination with the play of light on sand. They reflect the mutable nature of sand in shifting contexts, from desert expanses to swirling storms. Sand-inspired clusters of form and thought have also found their way into her compositions. A figurative element emerges too, articulating rhythm and carrying the narrative forward. This narrativity grows out of experiences that entwine thoughts, landscapes, places, and journeys – finally crystallizing in Mäkelä’s mind in the form of a painting.

Marika Mäkelä (b. 1947) is one of Finland’s most eminent painters. In a career spanning six decades, she has received many of the nation’s highest artistic honors, including the State Prize, the Pro Finlandia Medal, and the title of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland. In 2024, the President of the Republic of Finland awarded her the honorary title of professor. Marika Mäkelä’s works are represented in major international museums, including Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, and Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Harri Koskinen @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Magnitude" Exhibition

Harri Koskinen: Magnitude

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

August 22 – September 21, 2025

 

Harri Koskinen one of Finland’s most renowned designers, presents a new exhibition shaped by compelling, multi-layered themes that navigate borderlands between the mythical and the contemporary. Elements subtly reminiscent of survival gear suggest preparation for an uncertain future, serving as a quiet reminder of today’s volatile global climate. At the same time, the exhibition drifts into the realm of myth and adventure. Rather than creating ominous imagery, Harri Koskinen explores the delicate tension between the material form and conceptual depth of his work.

The exhibition presents a selection of unique glass sculptures, both free-blown and mold-cast. Glass, with its reactive sensitivity, naturally lends itself to the creation of multi-layered forms. As a material born from the transformation of sand through intense heat, then cooled into solid form, glass inherently embodies shifting states of matter. Koskinen’s minimalist visual vocabulary resonates beautifully with the fragility of his medium. Most of the featured sculptures were handcrafted at the historic glassworks in Iittala and Riihimäki, with select pieces produced in Switzerland. This marks Koskinen’s fifth solo exhibition at Galerie Forsblom.

HARRI KOSKINEN (b. 1970), is a highly versatile designer known for his conceptual approach. His practice spans both serial production and one-offs. Over the course of his distinguished career, he has served as design director at Iittala and collaborated with prestigious international brands including Artek, Genelec, Hermès, Issey Miyake, Muu, and Svenskt Tenn. Among his many accolades are the Torsten and Wanja Söderberg Prize, the Compasso d’Oro Award, and the Pro Finlandia Medal. Harri Koskinen lives and works in Espoo and Helsinki.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Raili Tang @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

Raili Tang

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

August 22 – September 21, 2025

Raili Tang’s latest paintings literally capture interwoven layers of time. Originally created in 1996 for an exhibition at Lahti Art Museum, the first iterations were inspired by train rides between Helsinki and Lahti, as Raili Tang gazed out the window at passing fields, barns, and forests. Now, thirty years later, she has returned to these same canvases, using them as the foundation for new artistic explorations. For Tang, the painted surface—built up through countless layers of color and intricate detail—remains her enduring source of inspiration.

In this renewed body of work, expressive floral motifs once again emerge from Tang’s abstract backgrounds. Some of her blooms stand upright in vases; others sprout from the earth itself. Among them are radiant orchids, painted in the spirit of German Expressionist Emil Nolde (1867–1956), alongside humble dandelions pushing up through cracks in the pavement. The theme of time’s passage is deeply embedded not only in the imagery, but in the very making of the works—some of the smaller floral compositions are built on backgrounds that Tang painted during her student years at the Academy of Fine Arts.

A master colorist, Raili Tang weaves a universe of details born from the interplay of pigments. The best way to experience her work is slowly: the layers of paint are like quiet clues, scattered breadcrumbs that lead to small, meaningful revelations. Her droplets of paint, nuanced brushstrokes, and vibrant hues capture a wide emotional spectrum—mirroring life itself.

Raili Tang (b. 1950) has exhibited extensively both in Finland and abroad. Her work is held in several of Finland’s most prestigious collections, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Sara Hildén Art Museum, the Wihuri and Saastamoinen Foundations, and HAM Helsinki Art Museum. Raili Tang was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal in 2015.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Stephan Balkenhol @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

Stephan Balkenhol

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

August 22 – September 21, 2025

The minimalist sculptures of German artist Stephan Balkenhol radiate a quiet, archaic power. Though his figures often assume formal poses and wear expressionless faces, they are anything but detached. Instead, they convey a restrained yet compelling intensity. Balkenhol’s primary focus is the human condition—whether his subjects are actual people or animals dressed in human clothing, they serve as reflections of humanity. He deliberately preserves the visible marks of his carving tools, giving each figure a tactile roughness that underscores its vulnerability. Sculpted from a single block of wood—typically soft poplar or Douglas fir—each work embraces natural cracks and coarse textures, foregrounding the imperfections that define what it means to be human.

Stephan Balkenhol is widely recognized as one of today’s foremost contemporary sculptors. In the early 1980s, he broke away from the dominant abstract and conceptual art movements of the time, turning instead toward figurative expression. Since then, the human form—and the existential questions it evokes—has remained central to his practice. While clearly representational, Balkenhol’s works resist literal interpretation, inviting viewers into open-ended encounters.

Stephan Balkenhol (b. 1957) studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste in Hamburg and has served as a professor at the Akademie für Bildende Künste in Karlsruhe since 1992. His sculptures are held in major international collections, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, Kunsthalle Hamburg, the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, and the Art Institute of Chicago. He lives and works in Karlsruhe, Kassel, and Berlin, as well as in Meisenthal, France.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Marjatta Tapiola @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Metamorphoses" Exhibition of Paintings

Marjatta Tapiola: Metamorphoses

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

June 6 – August 17, 2025

Marjatta Tapiola often takes inspiration for her paintings from literature, from sources such as the Greek Minotaur myth or the work of the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Rather than depicting these venerable literary sources literally, she uses them as a vehicle for dealing with themes such as the brutality of life and what it means to be human, exploring emotions, hopes and experiences familiar to everyone.

The exhibition provides a review of Tapiola’s recent oil paintings and works on paper, this time drawing inspiration from selected extracts of poetry by the German-born writer W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) and Autobiography of Red (1998) by the Canadian novelist Anne Carson (b. 1950). Foremost among Tapiola’s sources of literary inspiration are the epic myths of Metamorphoses originally published in Latin by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE-18 CE). The classic magnum opus is said to contain almost everything ever written in subsequent literature.

Ovid’s imaginative, sometimes tragic and sometimes humorous tales have inspired countless artists ever since Classical Antiquity and the Renaissance. Marjatta Tapiola is a contemporary artist who interprets Ovid’s powerful verses from her own personal point of view. The task has been a challenging one, and the results are surprising, as always – even to those already familiar with Tapiola’s art. Sebald and Carson both draw on art history and ancient mythology, and their evocatively visual writing has provided Tapiola with fresh inspiration in her exploration of new visual frontiers.

Marjatta Tapiola (b. 1951) ranks among the leading Finnish painters of her generation. Among the many accolades she has received are the Pro Finlandia Medal, the Finnish Cultural Foundation Award in 2004, and the State Prize for Fine Arts in 2006. Her work is held in the Ateneum Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, and numerous other major public collections in Finland. Marjatta Tapiola is also an acclaimed portraitist.

GALERIE FORSBLOM, HELSINKI

Lönnrotinkatu 5, 00120 Helsinki
www.galerieforsblom.com

Charles Sandison @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - New installation "Tabula Rasa" Exhibition

Charles Sandison: Tabula Rasa

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

June 6 – July 12, 2025

Charles Sandison’s new installation Tabula Rasa depicts words spilling out of open, empty books and moving towards each other in a continuous stream. The title refers to philosopher John Locke’s theory that humans begin life as a ‘blank slate’ onto which experiences and meanings are gradually imprinted. In Sandison’s Tabula Rasa, the blank slate is an ideological battlefield pitting words against each other as they compete to fill the empty pages.

The installation juxtaposes diametric opposites such as good and evil, love and hate. The word streams are controlled by a simple set of algorithms and driven by chance. The outcome of the ideological battle is unpredictable. The words begin to migrate more vigorously as their numbers dwindle, and it can take days for one word to take over all the books. When the process finally reaches its conclusion, the system resets and begins all over again.

Charles Sandison’s artistic practice addresses the themes of memory, linguistic structures and history, exploring cultural heritage and possible futures using contemporary digital technology. Employing generative code as his medium, his content comprises the entirety of our common cultural heritage and the ideological, artistic and philosophical ideas that have shaped contemporary society. The installation raises questions about power, freedom, the nature of knowledge and the process through which meaning is constructed – or deconstructed. Tabula Rasa is at once a visual spectacle, a philosophical commentary and a social allegory.

Scottish-born Charles Sandison (b. 1969) graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 1993. During a career now spanning over three decades, he has exhibited his work in public spaces around the world. Sandison’s work is held in numerous Finnish and international collections, including Helsinki’s Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, and art museums in Denver, Montreal, Rome and Bonn. The artist lives and works in Tampere, Finland.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Martin Wickström @ Galerie Forsblom - "Tänd dina eldar" Exhibition

Martin Wickström

Tänd dina eldar

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

May 5 – June 1, 2025

Martin Wickström’s (b. 1957) art is situated at the intersection between past and present, private and collective. His kaleidoscopic imagery juxtaposes unexpected elements: arctic avens in timeless alpine scenery appear side by side with barrel fires in 1980s Harlem, and American Pop Art emblems are interspersed among wistful childhood memories of growing up in the safe arms of Sweden’s folkhemmet during the 1960s. Martin Wickström mixes disparate decades and geographies, intermixing images of the French Alps with scenes from the United States, Sweden and Kyoto. His paintings engage in close scrutiny of quotidian drama wherever it unfolds, whether in family dynamics or in the international political arena.

Martin Wickström combines a variety of elements in his work: documentary photography, everyday objects and emotional memories. He finds and highlights beauty in architecture and design. His paintings have a diary-like quality – they are like carefully assembled visual notebooks that reward the viewer with their depth and nuance. Their multidimensionality is also challenging; the non-linear narrative plays with various parallels and associations, hinting at a bigger picture behind everything. Wickström’s paintings are characterized by their photorealistic precision and rootedness in tangible reality, yet they also evoke the fleeting, fragmented nature of moments that have become obscured by unreliable memories.

Martin Wickström bases his paintings on photographs, collected images and digital experimentation with various combinations before he begins to paint. He draws inspiration from everyday life and personal experiences, from everything he sees, records and feels, and from everything that is happening around him in the world. His guiding motto is the text found on French road signs at the entrance of tunnels: “allumez vos feux,” or “turn on your lights,” which the artist poetically interprets as a call to action.

Martin Wickström studied at the Gerlesborg School of Fine Art and the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm. He has exhibited widely around the world and his work is held in many prestigious collections, including Moderna Museet, EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art and the art museums of Gothenburg, Skövde and Norrköping.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

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

Stig Baumgartner @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Pyramid and Superego" Exhibition

Stig Baumgartner 

Pyramid and Superego 

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

March 28 – May 4, 2025 

The title of Stig Baumgartner’s new exhibition, Pyramid and Superego, alludes to hierarchical structures. The vibrantly colorful geometrical structures in his paintings are like monuments placed upon pedestals, some of them proudly balanced, others wobbly and imperfect. The artist describes monuments as images of social order; in his paintings, they embody either stability or turmoil.

Stig Baumgartner’s paintings typically possess a human or corporeal presence. Their architectural composition can be interpreted as mirroring the structures of the human mind or the concept of being human. Baumgartner’s art characteristically presents dialogues of opposites, combining expressive, calligraphic brushwork with precise, harmonious composition.

In the making of this exhibition, Stig Baumgartner found himself reflecting on artistic expression and career trajectory as a kind of monument in its own right. Work by work, the artist builds an increasingly sophisticated and unique structure of expression. At the apex shines a liberated peak that is built upon earlier works, both artist's own and those of other artists, and also upon the traditions of evolving art discourses. Each painting is always a unique event that combines acquired knowledge with personal experience. Artistic expression is invariably built upon a foregoing legacy, which can be either a burden or a liberation. Leaning towards the latter interpretation, Baumgartner hopes that his paintings will retain their ambiguous character as autonomous artistic creations.

Stig Baumgartner (b.1969) works in the tradition of abstract painting, paying homage to its legacy while at the same time boldly renewing it. Alongside his artistic practice, he is also a long-time lecturer in drawing and perception at the Academy of Fine Arts, the University of the Arts Helsinki. He completed his doctoral degree in 2015. Stig Baumgartner’s paintings are held in many of Finland’s most prestigious collections, including Saastamoinen Foundation and the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Iria Leino @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - An undeservedly forgotten and undervalued artistic estate

Iria Leino

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

March 28 – May 4, 2025

Galerie Forsblom has been granted the rare opportunity to explore an undeservedly forgotten and undervalued artistic estate in which history is palpably present. The gallery presents an exhibition featuring IRIA LEINO, a pioneer of the 1960s New York art scene and a figure enigmatic to contemporary audiences.

Iria Leino (1932-2022) was a Helsinki-born artist and fifties supermodel who made her mark as a pioneer of abstract art. At the height of her international modelling career, she left the fashion world to settle in New York’s SoHo, where she forged an exceptional career as an abstract expressionist. Her artistic journey reflected the cultural and artistic upheavals of New York in the 1960s.

Iria Leino combines the influences of Color Field painting with a meditative style of brushwork. After surviving a serious accident in 1968, she turned to Buddhism, which added a spiritual dimension to her artistic practice. Exemplifying this spiritualism is The Elephant Series, in which elephants symbolize wisdom and enlightenment. Leino’s exhibitions were well received by contemporary critics, who praised her innovative, norm-defying style of abstract expressionism.

Iria Leino’s meditative approach to painting is epitomized by The Dreamings Series (1988-1989), in which spiritual dimensions are invoked by colorful arches and dotted details. Leino was a reclusive figure whose one-of-a-kind serial oeuvre owes its existence to her dedication to solitude and spiritual guidance. Leino fused elements of Finnish nature and design with the traditions of American abstract expressionism to create an enduring legacy that is unique in art history.

Iria Leino surrendered herself to a life of solitude, meditation, and the guidance of a spiritual guru, enabling her to perfect her idiom through steadfast dedication to painting serially. By interweaving cross-cultural influences – Finnish nature and design with American traditions of abstraction – she created an unprecedented legacy shared by Finland and the United States.

Related Post on Wanafoto:

Iria Leino: 1968–1970, Harper's, New York, September 4 – October 19, 2024

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Liisa Pesonen @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Same But Different" Exhibition

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

www.galerieforsblom.com

Artist Kerttu Saali @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Lightbeams and a Blizzard" Exhibition

Kerttu Saali 

Lightbeams and a Blizzard 

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

February 21 – March 23, 2025

KERTTU SAALI (b. 1994)  has adopted a darker palette and more intense style of expression in her latest paintings. Her characteristic curvilinear shapes and twisting lines stretch across the canvas, alternately converging and diverging to form abstract compositions, or “sites”, as the artist describes them. Her burgeoning shapes spill outside the canvas, taking on a three-dimensional, sculptural form as they merge with the picture frame, creating contrasts between the solidity of the wood and the ethereal, painterly elements. Saali’s paintings suggest nature’s cycles and growth processes, as if they were mimicking nature rather than just representing it. Their sensual quality invites the viewer to experience them holistically. The sense of sight awakens the other senses, invoking sounds, smells, and tactile experiences in the viewer’s imagination.

Chlorophyll-scented, saturated greens engage in dialogue with translucent blues and whites, telling two sides of the same story. Kerttu Saali chooses her colors intuitively, letting the composition unfold spontaneously as she strives to capture a particular feeling or mood that the colors awaken in her. She begins with mid-tones and steadily progresses in two directions, adding layers of darker and lighter tones, simultaneously adding brightness and moving deeper into shadow.

Even Saali’s white paintings are never entirely monochromatic; the viewer’s eye is drawn to subtle tonal variations that evoke wintry landscapes and northern nature, resonating with subconscious memories of Finnish art history. Kerttu Saali in fact describes the imprints on the canvas as “memory traces”. When she paints, she never analyzes what the traces mean: her creative expression emanates from a total sense of freedom, drawing inspiration from everything the artist has seen and experienced.

KERTTU SAALI graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2023. She has exhibited in numerous group shows in Finland and internationally, and her work is held in many private and public collections, including those of the Vantaa Art Museum, the HUS Art Collection, the City of Tampere and Saastamoinen Foundation. The artist lives and works in Helsinki.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Charles Sandison: The Garden of Death @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

Charles Sandison

The Garden of Death

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

21 February – 23 March 2025

Charles Sandison taught himself to code during a time when computers were not yet part of daily life, and it became an organic aspect of his artistic thinking. His works are immersive, site-specific installations in which the viewer encounters ever-changing and evolving landscapes composed of digital and physical elements. These installations blend cultural memory, linguistic structures, and history in a continuous process that crosses temporal boundaries, where meanings are not predetermined. The past and the present, history and cultural heritage, meet the possibilities of the future. 

In the main gallery space, Charles Sandison creates an installation where these themes come to life, drawing parallels with motifs found throughout Western art history. The work is based on Hugo Simberg’s The Garden of Death, where archetypal themes—such as the skeleton representing death—are brought to the level of human experience: they live, suffer, love, and experience just as we mortals do. The garden is present not only as a theme but also in its concrete realization. The gallery, as a closed space, becomes a growth medium where, instead of organic life forms, digital entities grow. The computers placed in the space interact with each other, processing information—language, symbols, and behaviors—that, like DNA, passes on to the next generation. The work is not a pre-designed, repetitive video installation, but rather a code in which different parts communicate with one another, generating new content in real time. 

This contrast between eternal themes and human experience raises questions about the relationship between humans and technology in Sandison’s works, alongside the growing concerns about the power of artificial intelligence. Is technology shaping society in ways we do not yet fully understand, and are we humans the caretakers of the digital world, or the other way around? Have the oracles of old been replaced by probability calculations, and is collective memory now stored in digital archives? 

Born in Scotland, Charles  Sandison (b. 1969) graduated from the Glasgow School of Art in 1993, and his installations have been shown in public spaces around the world. His works are held in numerous Finnish and international collections, including the Kiasma Museum, the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, the Denver Art Museum, and the Bonn Art Museum. The artist lives and works in Tampere. 

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Kristina Riska @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Uncertainties" Exhibition

Kristina Riska: Uncertainties

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki

November 29, 2024 – January 12, 2025

Kristina Riska’s artistic process harnesses both the delicate malleability and the willful nature of clay. The artist describes herself as battling her material, attempting to achieve the impossible, which is why she was unsure until the last minute before the show’s opening how many of her sculptures would survive intact. When working with clay, one must humble oneself before the material – clay insists upon writing its own narrative. Its size and shape are transformed during firing in the kiln, as are the textures and colors imparted by glazes, thus conferring a key role to chance in the birthing process of ceramic art.

As an entirely new feature in Riska’s art, many of her recent sculptures are propped on struts, some resembling Japanese wooden geta sandals, others rounder like wheels or pompoms. By resting her sculptures on inbuilt pedestals, Kristina Riska has freed up wholly new avenues of expression in her construction of form. Each sculpture tells its own mini-story, and the titles hint at the underlying meanings in subtle, oblique ways. Instead of having a clear uniting theme, the sculptures in this exhibition were created intuitively, in states of mind ranging from joy to sorrow. They are richly diverse in style, yet each one has a counterpart or companion piece with which it engages in dialogue, creating cohesion within the exhibition.

Working with clay is just as inspiring to Kristina Riska today as it was forty years ago. She describes it as a huge privilege and gift. At the heart of her process is her desire to distill her craft to its purest essence – to strip everything down to the essentials and achieve total integrity of expression. While immersed in a project, she avoids looking at the work of other artists and strives to concentrate purely on her own creative process.

Kristina Riska (b. 1960) is one of Finland’s most internationally renowned ceramic artists. Her studio is based on the premises of the Arabia Art Department Society in Helsinki. She has won international awards and has exhibited her work everywhere, from the United States to Denmark and Japan. Her sculptures are held in numerous international private collections, as well as the collections of the Saastamoinen Foundation and the Finnish and Swedish governments.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Jordi Alcaraz @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki – "Dissonance" Exhibition

Jordi Alcaraz: Dissonance

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

September 27 – October 20, 2024

Jordi Alcaraz is a Spanish artist whose work is rooted in the classical traditions of painting and sculpture, but his choice of materials is anything but conventional. His chosen materials and techniques are in fact integral to the thematic concerns of his art. Jordi Alcaraz rarely uses traditional materials but instead harnesses the play of light and shadow in combination with textured surfaces and materials such as glass, mirrors, metal, stone, wood, paint and books. His artworks are essentially a visual inquiry into the nature of spatiality, language and time.

Despite their minimalism, his objects inherently require plenty of surrounding space with which to interact. Reflections, subtle shadows, contrasts between darkness and light, smooth and rough surfaces, and transparency and solid form become engaged in a mutually defining dialogue. Jordi Alcaraz opens windows on surprising worlds by bending, tearing, puncturing, and piercing his materials. Using both ink and metal wire to draw crisp, black lines, he embeds round and angular shapes in the midst of three-dimensional layers. The artist describes his textures as behaving like plastic or like rippling water, which can be perforated, stirred, and shaken. His art is a study of three-dimensionality, in which the key recurring theme is the dialogue that emerges between the object’s surface and its many layers.

Jordi Alcaraz (b. 1963) has been exhibiting his work in galleries, art fairs, and museums around the world for the past thirty-five years. His works are held in notable collections such as the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection in Miami, the Giorgio Frasca Collection in Paris, the Museum Biedermann in Donaueschingen, Germany, and the Ginny Williams Collection in New York. The artist lives and works in Barcelona.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki 

www.galerieforsblom.com

Lars-Gunnar Nordström: Centenary @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - A pioneer of Finnish post-war abstract art

Lars-Gunnar Nordström: Centenary

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

August 23 – September 22, 2024 

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lars-Gunnar Nordström (1924–2014), a pioneer of Finnish post-war abstract art. To mark the occasion of the centenary, Galerie Forsblom takes pride in presenting an exhibition spanning many decades of his career. Lars-Gunnar Nordström’s paintings and sculptures celebrate the universal properties of form, color and line, fusing these elements in meticulously planned order and carefully orchestrated harmonies. His compositions are distinctive for their dynamism, precision, and perfect command of color. His visual lexicon has the immaculate equilibrium of a mathematical formula. The mathematical character of his compositions also finds expression in their inherent spatiality, which stands as a distinctive hallmark of Lars-Gunnar Nordström’s highly recognizable Concretist painting style.

Lars-Gunnar Nordström achieved acclaim in the Nordic region not only as an artist but also as an influential art world figure, teacher, and writer. Prior to becoming an artist, Lars-Gunnar Nordström studied furniture design and dreamed of becoming an architect. Even after he became a painter and sculptor, he occasionally designed furniture and stage sets and did graphic designs for print.

The exhibition is a collaboration with the L-G Nordström Foundation.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki 

www.galerieforsblom.com

Artist Riiko Sakkinen @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Turborealist Color Theory" Exhibition

Riiko Sakkinen 

Turborealist Color Theory 

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

June 7 – August 18, 2024

A turborealist riot of color unfolds in Forsblom's corner gallery, courtesy of Riiko Sakkinen. Sakkinen, an outspoken political artist, is particularly interested in the symbolic meanings behind colors. He has been systematically studying colors and their connotations for over a decade, but this marks his first Finnish exhibition themed entirely around the subject of color.

Riiko Sakkinen is intrigued by the many ways colors are perceived, interpreted, and connected with language. His interest lies not in traditional color theory but in the cultural, political, and economic implications of colors. His exhibition features eleven paintings, each presenting a hue recognized as its own distinct color in most European languages. The spectrum includes all the primary and secondary colors, as well as black, gray, white, brown, and pink. Pink has its own word in many languages, and it is a color that conveys complex symbolism, representing everything from homosexuality to the British Empire and the social democrat movement.

Riiko Sakkinen challenges Kazimir Malevich’s Black Square (1915), which its creator described as an empty space devoid of meaning. Far from representing ground zero, Riiko Sakkinen’s allusions to black invoke various phenomena from jihadism and fascism to Black Friday campaigns. A color is never a complete void. Each color is packed with meaning, symbolism and connotations that vary subtly with the context. The artist states that a color says more than a thousand pictures.

Riiko Sakkinen (b.1976) has been based in Spain since graduating from Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts in 2002. He has exhibited widely both in Finland and abroad. His work is represented in many notable art collections, including New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, HAM Helsinki Art Museum, and the Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation. His solo exhibition Los moimoi de Fuengirola opens at the Serlachius Museums this June.

GALERIE FORSBLOM

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com

Artist Jacob Hashimoto @ Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki - "Dreams No Dreams" Exhibition

Jacob Hashimoto: Dreams No Dreams 

Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki 

June 7 – August 18, 2024

Jacob Hashimoto's latest works are a unique blend of seemingly endless streams of images woven together in infinite tangles. His art is a rich tapestry of visual references, ranging from East Asian crafts to Atari circuit boards and from the complex shapes of leaves to the architecture of churches and mosques from the plague era. This profusion of visual references raises intriguing questions: how can a limitless stream of images shape our identity? How does one create a sense of selfhood amidst the visual cacophony of the digital age? These are the themes that Jacob Hashimoto, a Japanese-American artist, explores in his work as he grapples with his fractured cultural heritage.

Jacob Hashimoto's art is a unique blend of sculpture and painting, combining the compositional principles of painting with traditional Japanese bamboo and rice paper handicrafts. His sculptures, made up of countless small paper kites, are not static objects but dynamic entities that subtly move and respond to the space and light around them. This interactive element, along with the myriad abstract patterns and carefully designed graphic details, creates a captivating visual experience within his organic, multi-layered spatial tapestries.

Jacob Hashimoto's exhibition presents a selection of his smaller works alongside a vast installation. Filling up the entire gallery space, the installation forces the viewer to adapt to its imposing presence, requiring us to dodge and watch our step. Thus, movement is brought into the space in a physical dance of give and take.

Jacob Hashimoto (b. 1973) has held numerous exhibitions worldwide at venues including the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Governors Island in New York, Turku's Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, and the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea in Rome. Hashimoto's work is found in prestigious collections such as the LACMA Tacoma Art Museum, the Saastamoinen Foundation, and the Schaufler Foundation. The artist is based in New York.

GALERIE FORSBLOM 

Yrjönkatu 22, 00120 Helsinki

www.galerieforsblom.com