Rose Diary
pigment print on silk
Silks toned with Cinnamon rose, Common nettle and St. John's wort
Portuguese pressed plants, birch veneer

114 x 73 x 2 cm
unique
2025

Prairie Flower
pigment print on silk
silks toned with Portuguese sandstone and Bougainvillea, Finnish Cinnamon rose, Fireweed, Tanacetum, Canadian goldenrod
Portuguese pressed plants and sea shells, spruce
left 197 x 215 x 2,8 right 208 x 244 x 2,8 cm
unique
2025

A hot wind breathes through I
pigment print on silk
birch veneer
45 x 29 x 2,8 cm
unique
2025

The Light of the Wings
pigment print on silk
Portuguese sea shells, birch veneer
20 x 29 x 2,8 cm
unique
2025

A Shell / A Dream
pigment print on silk, birch veneer
14,5 x 22,5 x 2,8 cm
unique
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.