12.3.–5.4.2026

The title of the exhibition, “Self”, refers to both the subject of the works and the way they were made: I have created images of myself, looking at myself. The etymology of the Finnish word ‘itse’ (‘self’) traces back to a Finno-Ugric word meaning ‘shadow’ or ‘shadow-soul’, carrying echoes of a view of human beings having multiple souls or, more precisely, multiple forms. Another starting point for the works is provided by stories of forest spirits that look like humans from the front and like trees from behind. In these stories, the spirit represents a feminized forest to which the masculinized hunter feels drawn. However, going around (‘ympäri kiertäminen’ in Finnish) reveals that looking at a being from only one direction leads one astray. In fact, the Finnish word ‘ymmärtäminen’ (‘understanding’) is linked to the three-dimensional space of thinking and knowing.

Grammatically, ‘itse’ can also refer to being on one’s own (or by oneself), purity or bareness. In some of the works, I have looked at myself using only my own eyes – without a mirror or a lens. In others, mirrors are present within the temporal layers of self-observation: the pencil studies and bubble wrap sculptures are based on a plaster cast of myself as a 20-year-old art student, gradually eroded by time. The plaster study shows what I looked like back then – seen as a reflection through three mirrors – and how my hands and eyes were able to capture that reflection. Practicing observation by using a practice work as a model repeats the imprecision of seeing.

Within the exhibition as a whole, one may find continuums, from the reflections of an art student to my present self as an artist in the “mid-career phase”. The drawing series “Virtuosus (Seated Nude)” consists of details of my body, drawn in ink. The title refers to the observation about the gendered nature of many Western concepts describing mental abilities: ‘virtuoso’ is derived from the Latin word ‘vir’, meaning ‘man’, while ‘genius’ originally referred to a male guardian spirit. The sculptures created using point measurement modelling continue my use of recycled packaging materials. The possibility of disintegration is constantly present, as the bubble wrap forms are held together only by thin metal sticks. The tension between emptiness and weight, two-dimensionality and depth, is also present in the aforementioned forest spirit myth. My works can be approached as reflections on form, but they also invite the viewer to ask what can be seen and under what conditions a body appears as a being with selfhood and identity.