Mari and Marila – hot names of the Finnish art scene

Mari Sunna: Untitled, 2010. Oil on canvas, 60 x 51 cm.

Today – at last - I visited two galleries in Helsinki and saw two suberb exhibitions by Finnish painters. Both are open only to the end of this month, so hurry!

Mari Sunna shows her new, amazing work in Galerie Anhava. What has happened to those doll-like, frightening faces with almost paralyzed expression in their red-rimmed eyes?

Now her females foam, burn, grow like trees or bushes, get wounded. They are still very vulnerable and their secrets are well hidden. I liked a lot the way they were painted: thinly, like putting make-up on with soft fingers and tender colours.
But am I ready to accept the truth under the beautiful surface, to honour the solitude and flames of a suffering soul?

Mari Sunna: Cage, 2011. Oil on canvas, 64 x 60 cm.

Find the details of Mari Sunna exhibition in www.anhava.com    

Totally different attitude to painting meets you in Korjaamo Galleria, where Carnegie Art Award 2012 winner Heikki Marila shows his new tactile flowers.  

Heikki Marila: Kukat XL. Oil on canvas, 200 x 250 cm. 

These modern interpretations on Henri Fantin-Latour´s flower still lifes are painted so thickly that the petals are three-dimensional, almost real. The colours are juicy, shining.

I found them very comforting. Even if they are still lifes they are not still - they are in a constant movement. All the time you find something new in them and start to wonder: are they living, are they really fresher than life? Still lifes have been meant to remind us of our mortality, but these paintings remind us how to enjoy life.

You find Heikki Marila in www.korjaamo.fi/fi/galleria

I had to take a detail photo of the same painting to show you the artist´s  almost fierce way to use colour.