A catalog with texts by Sven-Olov Wallenstein and Anders Olofsson is being made for the exhibition.
Artist Helena Mutanen:
Layers of thoughts. The brain tries to process and connect different subjects, mirror them. Outwardly, at first glance, they are not visible. But they are there in the details. Clears, minimizes and tries to place them in an internal order, like a map.
Each portrait or object has been given time. A new layer of colored papier-mâché is spread on. Slow movements with a butter knife. It is meditative work. Selection of attributes and details, which should enhance expression or content, takes place in the back of the mind. The object grows, changes and is reconsidered. The broken colors, which can be varied endlessly, add more flavor.
I started working with papier-mâché unconditionally. Partly because I am interested in finding materials that contribute to a smaller climate footprint. The technique, which after many different recipes and trials, gives an egg carton-like structure. But much harder, smoother and thicker. The technology appeals to me with its simplicity and its slowness.
The nervous system is interconnected with the brain and is a receiver. The hanging work “receiver/receiver” is an antenna plucked from the roof of my childhood home. It is padded and sewn on with sheet fabric, then waxed.
Work on these works began in the pandemic year 2020 and has continued through 2022. It has been a special and different time. During these two years, when I was working, I listened to factual e-books, radio news and biographies. I have been like a receiver, like an antenna. What has been received has left its mark on the works on display.
It’s like dipping a toe in a lake. That’s how little the meaning should come across. A balancing act between clarity and obscurity.
I’ve been asking myself why I generally have trouble picturing faces. Is it because a stylized facial expression is hard to look at as it doesn’t change or move? Or is it because the depicted faces can be too expressive? Or is it about the meeting with the “other”? The question remains.
From Sven-Olov Wallenstein’s text
The face meets us, it carries the look, the expression, the personality, and in the portrait we are facing another person who sometimes addresses us, sometimes seems to turn inward and neglect us, sometimes, as in what is traditionally called profil perdu, turns from us to further emphasize that the one we consider us is somewhere else, in his own thoughts, in another world. The face thus gives rise to an allure: who is it that we see, can we imagine another’s life reflected in gaze and facial expressions?
Is this a face?
Helena Mutanen (b. 1965) lives and works in Stockholm. She is educated at the Royal The Academy of Arts in Stockholm where she graduated in 1998. She has received several scholarships such as the Maria Bonnier Dahlin scholarship in 1998 and the Stockholm city cultural scholarship in 2000. Helena Mutanen has had a large number of solo exhibitions at galleries and art galleries in Sweden, but also in Helsinki. She has participated in several group exhibitions, including at Pilane sculpture park 2016, Bonniers art gallery 2016, Sven Harrys art museum 2017–18. She has also taught both at Konstfack; master’s project in 2009 and Bergen University of the Arts as guest teacher in 2010.
In 2021, Helena Mutanen received the Art Academy’s exhibition grant from Gerard Bonnier’s fund. The scholarship includes an exhibition at the Art Academy, funds to carry out the exhibition and an exhibition catalogue.