11.9.–11.10.2026

Hippolyte Studio

You tell me you had a dream about me and cotton candy. It was just me and cotton candy smiling.
I sink into the image you painted of myself as an angelic figure looking gently at the world.

Eero Yrjölä and Aleksi Kolmonen’s joint exhibition Then our sinful soul finds an angel in each other at Hippolyte Studio consists of photography, ceramics and sound. The installation deals with the essence of an angel in a self-portrait and plays with the abundance and emptiness of the nostalgic world of glossy photos.

The angel in the exhibition is defiant, radical and queer. Yrjölä and Kolmonen draw on traditional angel aesthetics, but at the same time challenge the worldviews and ideologies associated with it. Although the angel is a culturally identifiable figure, it seems to escape more precise definitions, time and place. The angel is fluid : it slides from one form to another and flies between alternative realities.

Inner angelicness is a way of being for the working couple – a conscious choice to experience the world through innocence and without shame. In Yrjölä and Kolmonen’s joint work, different methods and techniques are intertwined. In the exhibition, a porcelain angel figure is given a fleshly counterpart.

Eero Yrjölä (b. 1990) deals with the experience of the body, gender and sexuality in his art. Yrjölä works in a variety of ways, especially through installation. In recent years he has explored the materiality of clay. Through clay – as if by chance – layers of emotions and desires are shaped, opened up, and breathe.

Yrjölä graduated with a Master of Arts from Aalto University in 2017. Her art has been seen at the Museum of Contemporary Art WAM and in the Tampere Art Museum exhibition, where she and Aleksi Kolmonen exhibited their first joint work. Yrjölä’s works are included in the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Fund collections at the Rovaniemi Art Museum and in the Tampere Art Museum collections.

Aleksi Kolmonen (b.1996) paints nude self-portraits inspired by the queer scene and calls himself an angel. Kolmonen is a Helsinki-based community artist who works primarily with constructed images in the field of visual arts. The central goals of his aesthetically rich imagery are to document the queer community and to actively build and strengthen it. Through portraits, Kolmonen creates landscapes where it is possible to be seen and encountered. In addition to visual art, he produces cultural events and is part of several music groups. He organizes karaoke and singing events for the queer community, acts as a soloist in the Homoiskelmäyhtie Harhavietsi and is also part of the Helsinki Out ‘n Loud gay choir.

Kolmonen has studied at the Pekka Halonen Academy and the Turku Academy of Arts, from which he graduated in 2024. His works have been exhibited, among others, in the Spektri exhibition at the WAM Art Museum in Turku, the Seinäjoki Art Hall and the Lou Gallery in Helsinki. Kolmonen was named the 2025 Queer Artist of the Year at The Queer Gala. He has spoken about his work at the Ateneum, Kiasma and on several panels.

The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.