Emmi Kallio is a visual artist, whose paintings at first glance seem to represent abstract expressionism. On closer inspection, the paintings gradually reveal representational elements, story snippets and recognizable details. Although Kallio’s work isn’t a pure representation of abstract expressionism, her kinship to the movement is obvious. She paints with her entire body. The artist’s movements and physical dimensions are visible in the finished paintings. Fierce strokes, gushing paint and vivid surfaces of colour make for rich and delicious artworks. What is essential is that for Kallio, beauty is not insignificant. Beauty is worth pursuing, but it is this pursuit, rather than the achieved end result, that Kallio depicts in her art.

Kallio’s choices of colours and motifs closely connect her paintings to the present day, even though they have a nostalgic undertone. They display the scattered world around us, while looking back wistfully for something whole and beautiful that perhaps once existed. The symbolics of Emmi Kallio’s paintings reveal similar thoughts of confusion and anxiety that many of us have when seeing the news every day. However, this does not put an end to the end-of-the-world party.

Veikko Halmetoja