Awkwardly Presentable

Gallery Saskia’s exhibition Awkwardly Presentable is my biggest solo exhibition to date. It is organized in cooperation with Gallery Halmetoja. In addition to acrylic paintings, a small series of drawings is on display.

The birth of the works has been preceded by a lifelong enthusiasm for English country houses as a stage for fiction. Butlers, candlelit dinners and afternoon tea in the garden. A collapsed body at the desk, a lost pearl necklace, footprints in front of French windows, and a forged will. Glory, laziness, arrogance, and endless resentment. Class differences and even more restrictive gender roles than corsets. Stunning beauty and even greater longing.

My works are not attached to a specific era or fictional model, but rather are compilations of stories captured here and there. Poirot tiptoeing past Brideshead’s fountain on the verge of resolving a mystery. And when the lover suddenly drops dead in Lady Mary’s bed, Jeeves arrives to the rescue as Mrs. Bennett overcomes the premature end of a potential suitor. And while no one hears the madwoman in the attic or the howling hound of Baskerville at night, they sense their presence through their dreams. And alongside to all this is a narrator who marks things as they see and remember, imagine they remember, or think they have seen.

Awkwardly Presentable 28.1.-16.2.2022.

Gallery Saskia, Pirkankatu 6, Tampere. Mon-Fri 12-18, Sat-Sun 12-16.