3.9.2026 – 27.9.2026

Leonor Ruiz Dubrovin’s Sense of Some Place exhibition presents new paintings by the artist. One of the starting points of the exhibition is the artist’s Finnish-Spanish background, as a result of which she experienced living between two cultures. Dual citizenship also permeates her art, which shows her location “in the middle of two different traditions, customs and lifestyles”. The experience has deeply influenced Ruiz Dubrovin, who reflects on the possibility of an authentic self and its importance in a time when many people create themselves again and again on the stage of social media.

Ruiz Dubrovin has been interested in the concept of the self, as conceived by psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), which combines both the conscious and unconscious self. Reflecting on the concept has led him to experiment with how different levels of consciousness could be combined in paintings. In the artist’s latest works, different motifs intertwine in a way that is reminiscent of alchemical processes or the principles of free association.

In the exhibition, the artist’s latest paintings are like dreamscapes, in which different things and beings are juxtaposed with each other in a liberated and uninhibited manner. Some of the works in the exhibition are portrait-like collage paintings, in which the figures in the paintings are combined with various objects. There are also larger paintings on display, in which the characters are combined with everyday things, such as dishes or fruit, in addition to which the works show animals, faces and other recognizable objects. The works are a combination of hyperrealistic and abstracted painting styles, which emphasizes their free association.

Sense of Some Place is an apt title for an exhibition whose works concretize how even an imprecise and internally contradictory experience can be very concrete and precise. The works in the exhibition are located at a point where the conscious and unconscious meet, from which there is a direct connection to both. The artist mixes a surrealist-like wonder with a hand-made digital-like topicality. Standing in front of the works, one can feel one is in a moment where eternal symbols appear as if in short videos conjured up by incomprehensible algorithms. In this case, time disappears and something eternal emerges.

Leonor Ruiz Dubrovin’s imagery arouses curiosity, and in a beautiful way, a calm restlessness that tempts one to throw oneself into the clutches of associations. She creates visual worlds where different levels of reality raise the question of where all this comes from. Artists are true magicians who, through their labor, create realities where the familiar and the unknown are one.

Sense of Some Place is a combination of beauty, a little horror and a lot of curiosity. Leonor Ruiz Dubrovin travels towards the unknown and the irrational with an open mind and a keen eye. Her art opens up vistas of encounters between things and worlds. The viewer does indeed feel the experience of some place, but what it is is never clear. After all, it is art where mysteries always have their place.

— PhD Juha-Heikki Tihinen

Leonor Ruiz Dubrovin (b. 1978, Madrid) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2008 and currently lives and works in Helsinki. Dubrovin’s works have been exhibited widely in Finland and abroad, including at Helsinki Contemporary, Gallery Forum Box, Elverket Gallery and Rovaniemi Art Museum, Galeria Modus Operandi, the Finnish Cultural Institute in Madrid, and Toolbox Gallery and Gallery Heike Arndt in Berlin. Her works are included in several collections, such as the Päivi and Paavo Lipponen Trust Art Collection, which is deposited at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasmaa, the Finnish State Art Collection, the Finnish Art Association collections, and the Wihuri and Pro Artibus Foundations. She has received several awards, including awards from the Stina Krooks and Grönqvistska Foundations.

The exhibition is part of the Finnish-wide Gallery Week from 21 to 27 September 2026. The Gallery Week programme consists of art exhibitions and other events free to the public in galleries around Finland. The event is organised by the national visual arts organisations Muu ry , the Finnish Sculptors’ Association , the Finnish Graphic Artists’ Association , the Finnish Painters’ Association and the Finnish Association of Photographers . galleraviikko.fi/

Thank you to the Arts Promotion Centre of Finland and the Finnish Cultural Foundation for supporting the artist’s work.