About the exhibition
The exhibition reflects on the importance of place for painting and the importance of the exhibition space for the exhibition. How do the working and exhibition space affect the final result? When entering an artist residency, taking over a new place often changes painting the artist’s internal landscape to painting the external landscape. For example, in the Villa Karo residence, the different, strong light of Africa in the buildings and the landscape attracted me to paint them, thus making the environment familiar.
Malmitalo’s exhibition space is interesting because of its various surface materials, curved walls and different heights. Öhrnberg found it challenging and exciting to make this space part of the exhibition. For example, she took into account the high space of the gallery with a four-meter plastic painting, and the abstract acrylic painting partially shows the same rhythmicity as in the checkering of the space’s window. The exhibition consists of works completed in residencies and various workspaces and photos that tell about work processes.
The final results of residency work are always affected by very different circumstances.
United Arab Emirates, Liwa (2019, 2021), painting took place concretely with feet in the sand in the middle of the dunes. Only a small herd of camels could be seen in the sandy desert from time to time. It was easy to concentrate on working. On the other hand, when Ben was working as a Villa Karo scholarship holder (2022), the workspace had a disco with 200 students at its worst. In the Serlachius residence in Mänttä (2023) in the small studio of the wooden house, Öhrnberg’s work turned more inward, in contrast to previous Residenzsi experiences, and she made small abstract paintings. In Outokumpu’s Vanha kaivos residence (2024), the interesting spaces led to ideas for the work. The old door of the crane room inspired me to make a new version of Helene Schjerfbeck’s painting The Door. In keeping with the theme of our unsustainable waste society, it is a darkly bleak view of our world, a bleak future. What kind of landscape do we want to be revealed behind the door? On closer inspection, the work is surprising when you see the household waste plastics used as the material of the work.
Katja Öhrnberg
Katja Öhrnberg has been committed to art and developed it for thirty years after graduating from art school. There have been exhibitions both in Finland and abroad (22 solo exhibitions and 99 group exhibitions), and she has also organized joint exhibitions. She has always wanted to emphasize the independence of his artistic vision and, when working, to create new perspectives and attract the viewer to the visual world, whether he was working with painting, sculpture or community art.
Visit the exhibition
Malmitalo
Ala-Malmin tori, 00700 Helsinki
Mon-Thu 8-20, Fri 8-18, Sat 10-16
