Hanna Vahvaselkä ”Reconstructions”

People sometimes ask writers why they write. I myself have muttered that “I haven’t found another way to say what I want to say”. Wrong. I have not been able to say it by writing either. For years I have been trying to describe what it was like when I as a young boy was going home after swimming and the summery city was quiet, when my hair was wet and the streets were dry, when I was longing for something but I didn’t know what it was.
(Petri Tamminen, Muita hyviä ominaisuuksia, Otava 2011)

How to depict a small, private nature experience or the sadness of letting go through an artwork? What could be the form of a momentary everyday sense of security, time passing by, the disappointment of failing, a confusing and messy unspoken thought or an intergenerational concern…

In this exhibition, I make visible some of the small, compact moments that influence our actions and choices. My works fall somewhere between black, messy sorrow and pale red dreams. They are about longing, encountering, failure, letting go and remembering – something is left unfinished, something breaks, something is crossed out. I have taken the original moments and experiences to pieces, distanced myself from them, freely interpreted them and finally reorganized them.

In addition to the personal level, in my works I explore the relationship to handicraft, the legacy of modernism, images and materials. I explore wood sculpture, nature relationships, gender roles and the work of an artist; how an artist works in the middle of traditions and legacies, unraveling, cleaning and rearranging often intergenerational expectations, models, concerns and stories.

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

Hanna Vahvaselkä
hanna(a)vahvaselka.fi
050 5670803
vahvaselka.kuvat.fi

Exhibitions visits only by appointment until 18th December (Mon – Fri 12-5pm). Please contact us:
050 3955 255, or galleria(a)galleriahuuto.net. We use the door from Eerikinkatu.