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Photography By Mari Hokkanen by Alexandra Pereira 2008-08-19 09:00:45 |
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Photographers are one of Finland’s greatest artistic strengths, as the “Helsinki School” developed and broadened its explorations to achieve excellence in most photographic domains, from photojournalism to portrait, landscapes, compositions or documentary photography, using different printing techniques and colours with the same ease as they handle black and white.
The work developed in the last decades produced its own results, with at least a dozen of very talented, well-equipped and well-taught people – at least a dozen top photographers among the dozens of quality ones formed – working simultaneously and achieving high levels of recognition abroad, which actually is quite much for a 5 million people country, and has something to do with the supports given to the Arts/Education as well. Names such as Hannes Heikura, Jyrki Parantainen, Esko Männikkö, Stefan Bremer, Jussi Aalto, Heli Rekula, Miklos Gaál, Elina Brotherus, Sanna Kannisto, Ulla Jokisalo, Ilka Halso, Tiina Itkonen or Susanna Majuri, for example, have a solid international position when talent and technical proficiency are at stake.
Since the nineties, a group of high-quality female photographers arose, who often deal strongly with concepts of femininity in their art works. One of the most interesting facets of the Helsinki School is the expertise shown by many artists when it comes to creating imaginary scenarios and stage-like compositions, besides the typically very specific and thorough concepts which they tend to develop, and the evolution of their work through thematic series. Conjugated with this, I would add that a very unique way of treating colour and contrast can help you to distinguish some photos by artists of the Helsinki School. Nonetheless, originality is highly appreciated, as each artist enjoys enormous freedom to follow his own personal path and his specific work interests.
Mari Hokkanen (b. 1979) is a fantastic young Finnish female photographer: talented, original and technically skilled. Mari appreciates nostalgic places or environments where she feels she can start telling a story: «I am inspired by spaces in which I can imagine people and their stories. Spaces where it is possible to sense the past», like abandoned warehouses and houses, which serve as poetic shelters for her present artistic scripts. These can be shot as far as in the Australian countryside and encompass as different characters as old ladies and alternative circus artists, piercing their skin with sharp instruments while swinging hanged in the air.
Graduated in photojournalism, Mari Hokkanen has held exhibitions in cafeterias and bars in Helsinki and will be having a collective exhibition next Spring in Portugal. Meanwhile, she will present in Nunes Gallery (Helsinki) the solo exhibition Being by your beings – Path of the yellow dress from 24.08-14.09.2008, through which she explores the theme of the elaboration and construction of an identity between the past and the present.
The woman in the photos moves through distinct environments, trying different clothes on, like in a theatrical stage. Here, a very true thought conveyed by Hokkanen is that growth manifests itself between rejection and selection. At the same time, mythological roots are weaved into this process of identity construction, representing broader collective identities and symbols. Human growth is a mystery to oneself – like life is a mystery for the one living it –, and Mari expresses this idea by means of characters who spy on each others, see transparent traces left by the others, hide and show themselves again as if playing a hide and seek game.
Mari follows an experimental and intuitive method inside a plan frame, which need must have been strengthened by her education and technic knowledge: the sceneries, themes and characters are sometimes carefully studied in advance, while the outcomes are somewhat unpredictable, much thanks to the value she gives to spontaneity and improvisation: «My way to take photos is intuitive, although some of the pictures are planned far away. Nevertheless shooting is an experimental process that gives often a surprise by its result.»
From a bird-cage woman on the top of a warehouse staircase, reminding us of a personal interpretation/development of a surrealistic Magritte, to a hide and seek game with characters somewhat similar to (and as mysterious as) forest dwarfs or Santa’s helpers peeking through windows as they research different possibilities, to a travel suitcase inside which someone was “packed” while an umbrella, a colourful overcoat and a woman’s hat, almost alive, patiently wait for their owner outside – everything is possible in Hokkanen’s photos.
The artistic journey as a form of consolidation and elaboration of one’s identity, by allowing the subject-artist to “be different selves” which communicate inside him forming one solid whole, comes again to our mind through the character wearing the yellow stripped dress and overlooking a nocturnal city street, which shows up as a metaphor enwrapped in beautiful golden colours. Motherhood as a stage in which collective identities and hopes are projected, as a place of connection to the divine and the myth is approached in another photo with a wonderful treatment of colour and contrast. And once again the windows open up to one transparent, naked self, both outside and inside the house of the artist, one of her many different houses, her home being nature at times, her nature the stories she likes to tell. CLICK HERE TO SEE A SELECTION OF HER ARTWORK IN OVI'S EXHIBITIONS
Galleria Nunes Pohjoinen Rautatiekatu 17 A-a 00100 Helsinki - Finland info@galleria-nunes.com www.galleria-nunes.com The gallery is located just on the other side of the street from Latsipalatsi, next door to AVA Design. Opening Hours Tue-Fri 11-17 Sat-Sun 12-16 Mondays Closed
Photography Finland Art |
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