Category: Work

Lappeenranta Art Museum
Lappeenranta, Finland
Curator: Riikka Thitz
February 21st – May 11th 2026

Vesireitit (eng. Waterways), 2026

The multidisciplinary exhibition Vesireitit (eng. Waterways) brings together artists who explore human relationships with the landscape of Eastern Finland. The exhibition delves into the mythical, ideological, and emotional dimensions associated with waterways: purity and clarity, the wistful magic of bright summer nights and the constant transformation of life.

The participating artists view the landscape from different perspectives. Some address their personal relationship with the waters of eastern Finland, while others consider political questions of ownership and belonging related to place. The exhibition also reflects on how the landscape has been depicted in different art forms and how these traditions still influence the ways landscapes are perceived today.

The featured artists are Teo Ala-Ruona, Liisa-Irmelen Liwata, Anna Mustonen, Anne Naukkarinen, Mikki Noroila, Emilia Pennanen, Sirkku Rosi, and Suvi Tuominen. The exhibition also includes paintings by Pekka Halonen, Sinikka Kurkinen, Elias Muukka, and Maria Wiik, as well as objects from the collections of the Museums of Lappeenranta.

Vesireitit has been curated by Riikka Thitz and it is produced in collaboration with i dolci and Lappeenranta Art Museum.

An essay on the network of interaction relationships within the landscape made visible by Elias Muukka’s painting Rantamaisema.

The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Heritage Agency and Viipuri-säätiö.

Exhibition photography: Tuure Leppänen

In process, unfinished works

On view during Open Studio Exhibition of works in progress
June 11th – June 15th 2025
Serlachius Residency, Mänttä

Being both: Earthed and waterborne
Prairie Flower
Mudrock
Petrichor
Olemme molempia: maastatulleita ja veteensyntyneitä
Preeriankukka mutakivi sateenjälkeinen tuoksu petrichor
Olla sekä maan kantama että veden viemä
Juurtunut, maadoittunut

*

Tiesitkö, että lumme on molempia? Se kasvattaa juurensa maahan ja syntyy veteen, yksin, ilman toista
Samalla tavalla sinä synnyit vedestä ja tulit maasta, sormesi ovat multaiset joka kerta kun näemme, sanot että olet taas työskennellyt kasviesi kanssa

*

Pinnan takana on pelko, painajainen, haavekuva, kohtaamaton tapahtuma, jonka eteen voi astua kun maalaus asettuu sen pinnalle
Päivät toistavat toisiaan, kirjoitit
ja niin ne tekevät
muuttuvat yhdeksi muistoksi

*

I am living in a house at the edge of the world where the ocean consumes the earth as its own. The house is made out of sticks and hay, when the wind comes it blows the walls away, little by little, one wooden strip and one strand of hay at a time, until the whole house disappears into the landscape. When the sun goes down there is not much warmth left. The water in the air turns into ice drops cutting small holes into the skin. It carves traces of age-old truths, signs that something happened.

*

Emilia Pennanen esittelee uuden teoskokonaisuuden alkuprosessia, jonka lopputulokset tulevat esille kahtena yksityisnäyttelynä Suomessa ja Portugalissa vuonna 2026. Teoksissa yhdistyvät Portugalista kerätyistä kivistä taiteilijan itse tekemät kivipigmentetit, joilla on maalattu silkille, silkille vedostetut valokuvat, Portugalista ja Suomesta kerätyt kasvit sekä Portugalista kerätyt simpukankuoret.

Open Studio Exhibition of works in progress that are unfinished
April 26th 2025
RAMA artist residency, Portugal

Participating artists Beata Daria Kubecka, Mari Sagrusten and Rina Neimi and guest artist Emilia Pennanen.
The exhibition is curated by Ana Anacleto. More photographs here.

The grantee artists Beata Daria Kubecka, Rina Neimi, and Mari Sagrusten, selected in partnership with the DTK Kunstfagskolen i Bærum art school (Norway), participated in the project titled “Coast to Coast”, which lasted 25 days, from April 3 to 27, 2025. Joining this project was artist Emilia Pennanen, based in Helsinki, Finland, also a grantee of the Culture Moves Europe initiative, with her own research project focused on the cliffs of Portugal’s western coast. She was working at the residency for 40 days, from March 18th until April 26th. This was part of their artistic residency at RAMA – Residências Artísticas de Maceira e Alfeiria, carried out within the scope of Culture Moves Europe, funded by the European Union and implemented by the Goethe-Institut.

The artists were challenged to relate their artistic practices to their lived experiences along the coasts of Norway, Finland (where they reside), and Portugal’s West region, where RAMA is located. They sought points of contact and contrast between the nature, culture, and spirituality of each coastal territory — the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The project also focused on how the artists’ bodies and perceptions responded to displacement across these distinct environmental and cultural contexts.

Rose Rock/Prairie Flower (2025)
Gallery Huuto
Helsinki, Finland
6th of February – 2nd of March 2025

Rose Rock/ Prairie Flower (2025)

The bud opens slowly, the petals move away from the center, at first protecting the stamen, softly touching each other, eventually reaching towards the light, the center filled with sweetness, tiny spots from which strands reach out wishing to be seen, slowly empties, fills with moisture from the clouds, the pigment of the leaves disappears, curls up, falls down, completely empty, a shiny shell grows, protecting the center, until the wind blows it away, the stamen falls to the ground, it is absorbed into the soil.
– Emilia Pennanen

Emilia Pennanen’s exhibition Rose Rock / Prairie Flower features photographic sculptures. The exhibition examines what makes up a landscape and how it could be presented in a new way. The works highlight the artist’s view of the connection between femininity and nature, which she sees as symbols in nature. The works were inspired by the poetry of the American poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), characterized by the symbolism between feminine sensuality and nature. The multi-material series of works explores the tension between seeing a landscape and the experience of being in the place.

The photographic sculptures are landscape images printed on silk fabrics. The images have been dyed with plants and printed using both digital and analog methods. The content of the photographs consists of details that make up a landscape, such as sandstones, rock formations and plants on the Atlantic coast, shells and fossils, and self-portraits with the landscape and its elements. Pennanen’s interest in multi-materiality in the creation of photographs has arisen from a desire to convey sensuality similar to that experienced when spending time in places. The images printed on textiles, the frames made of wood and the plaster cast sculptures refer to touch and forms found in nature, such as seashells, rock surfaces and caves as well as the ever-roaring ocean that shapes them.

Pennanen got the idea for the series when working in Portugal, near the Atlantic coast. The time spent in the area made her reflect more closely on her relationship with landscapes traditionally considered sublime, such as oceans and mountains. The details of these landscapes, such as plants and their blossoms, shells and the erosion of rock surfaces, become invisible and layered parts of nature. However, for Pennanen, they are at the core of the landscape, symbols of feminine sensuality. Shells are safe places, homes, mirrors that contain and conceal femininity. Red ocher earth pigment leads one beneath the earth’s surface, towards a different personal space, into a water-shaped stalactite cave. The photographs have been printed with natural materials, so the material structure of the photographs is based on the landscape, in a way forming its own self-portrait. Nature’s uncontrollability becomes part of the process: the outcome cannot be predetermined in nature’s endless continuum, which is ever-changing and always reborn.

The exhibition is a continuation of Pennanen’s solo exhibition Sunspinner (Rosa Rocha), which was on display at Photographic Gallery Hippolyte Studio in May 2024.

The artist’s work have been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).
The plants used in the artworks were collected from nature in collaboration with Noa P. Mendes, a Portuguese herbalist artist.

Sunspinner (Rosa Rocha) (2024)
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte Studio
Helsinki, Finland
11th May – 2nd of June 2024
All exhibition documentation photographs are by Matteo Parrotto, 2024.

Sunspinner (Rosa Rocha), 2024

The cave is like a mirror, looking back, a mirror with eyes, a mirror that is private, mine. In the mirror is the ocean, something moving, unstoppable, blue, brown, green, grey, heavy, moist, an endless sea. The cave is mine, mine, mine, not to be shared. The cave is my body, and my body oozes fluids; sea water eats it slowly with kisses, salt licks my feet, slowly waiting, and I melt into it until I become the sea; slowly, stone corrodes and surrenders to the sea. The surface of the sea is a mirror that never stops, always looking back; water droplets rise from its surface.
– Emilia Pennanen

Emilia Pennanen’s exhibition Sunspinner (Rosa Rocha) at Hippolyte Studio is an entity formed from photographic sculptures. The exhibition examines what landscapes are made of and explores how they could be presented in a new way. The works highlight the artist’s view of the connection between femininity and nature, which manifests as an uncontrollable force beyond human reach. In multi-material pieces, the work reflects on the tension between experiencing landscapes and being in a place.

The photographic sculptures combine landscape photographs printed on silk fabrics, produced through digital and analogue methods. The pictures contain details that construct the landscape, such as limestone and sandstone, the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean and its flora, shells, and fossils, as well as self-portraits within the landscape and its elements.  Pennanen’s interest in multi-materiality as part of creating photographs has emerged from the desire to convey a sensory experience akin to that of time spent in specific places. Images printed on textiles, wood frames, and plaster sculptures allude to touch and natural forms, such as caves, the surface and shapes of stone, and the endlessly roaring ocean that moulds them.

The series originated from Pennanen’s work in Portugal, near the coastline of the Atlantic Ocean. The time spent in the location led her to contemplate her relationship with landscapes perceived as sublime, such as the ocean and mountains. In these landscapes, there is a feminine force defined by Pennanen that both shapes and destroys life. The artist believes that this force does not adhere to heteronormative models but is free and gender-neutral. The inspiration for the exhibition comes from a myth encountered in Portugal, about the water goddess Nabia, described as The Lady of the Lusitanian waters, who appears to the artist as a mixture of beauty, sliminess, wateriness, horror, and love. This force resides in the unstoppable continuum of nature, which is uncontrollable, changing, and continuously reborn. Through the myth, Pennanen explores the connections between nature and femininity in her work, examining the relationship between the two.

The exhibition also examines the limitations of traditional landscape photography’s two-dimensional surface, which often distances the viewer from nature. At the core of Pennanen’s work is the quest for a new way to observe landscapes through the medium of photography, diverging from the tradition by exploring them up close and from multiple perspectives.

The exhibition and the artist’s work have been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike).
The plants used in the artworks were collected from nature in collaboration with Noa P. Mendes, a Portuguese herbalist artist.

Sun Drawing on the Skin of a Rock, 2023
6.10.–5.11.2023
Photographic Centre Peri
Turku, Finland

Exhibition documentation video and all exhibition documentation photographs by Anastasia Korpelainen.

Sun Drawing on the Skin of a Rock, 2023

The air is thick with salt. The echo of the waves is absorbed within the wind. The salt has dissolved the rock as the sunlight and the sea water press themselves against it. The surface of the rocks is rough, like sucked candy. The skin evaporates and turns into sand. The nails become brittle, until they are transformed into seashells. The mouth blows tall bubbles through the tongue. Eyelids turn transparent, the vision is unbroken.

The exhibition Sun Drawing on the Skin of a Rock is a collection that examines landscape photography. The exhibition consists of photographic sculptures and a soundscape. The photographic sculptures are constructed of photographs printed on canvas with varying techniques in combination with wooden and plaster structures. The artist’s work is informed by curiosity towards landscape photography, its materiality and its perceptible and substantial qualities. The works approach photography as a conduit for presence, touch, and material connections. The works also seek to discover an emotional sense of identification with a vanishing world that is being covered in a searing and almost blindingly bright light, a soft haze, and finally the absence of light: darkness.

Journeys by land on the different coasts of the Atlantic provide the premise for the artist’s work. The photographs which form the basis for the works have been taken e.g. in Portugal and Iceland. Time spent near water has been a part of a corporeal study which has guided the artist towards the three-dimensional shapes of the works. Eventually the sculptures themselves seemingly transform into set pieces depicting places, memories and experiences.

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