Join us on Sunday, December 20 at 2 PM ET for a Virtual Studio Visit with acclaimed Finnish painter Camilla Vuorenmaa! In this event, Vuorenmaa invites ASF into her Helsinki live-work studio to discuss her latest carved wood painting series, based on her recent exploration into the Spiritualist movement in the United States. With a hybrid sculpture-painting style that requires both time and physical strength to create, Vuorenmaa challenges the physical and traditional boundaries of painting. Using a style that is rough and unvarnished, yet endowed with a sensitive brush stroke and striking palette, her work reveals an expressive, vibrant approach to eclectic subject matter of myth, folklore, and persistent faith in contemporary life.
The program will take place as a Virtual Premiere on both Facebook and YouTube; set reminders at the links above to either platform to watch and chat with us during the program.
This event is the second in a series of Virtual Studio Tours from Scandinavia House. See the previous tour with Pekka and Teija Isorättyä here.
About the artist
Camilla Vuorenmaa (b. 1979) graduated from the Department of Painting at the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2005. She lives and works in Helsinki, Finland. In 2017 Vuorenmaa was nominated for Finland’s biggest art price Ars Fennica, among four other nominees. Vuorenmaa received the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts Prize in spring 2015, after which her solo exhibition was shown at EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. In 2018, Vuorenmaa was awarded a William Thuring prize. Vuorenmaa also won a prize for her wooden works in the International Solo Awards 2013 at the Spring exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen.
In her practice, Camilla Vuorenmaa challenges the physical and traditional boundaries of painting. Her carved wood paintings are hybrids of sculpture and painting that require time and physical strength to create. The style is rough and unvarnished, endowed with a playful decorativeness, the palette rich and striking. Some of the reliefs are like partitions, others feature elements of wall painting, a medium the artist likes for its immediacy, momentariness and spatiality. Vuorenmaa depicts people and humanity in her work. She searches for motifs in magazines and books and by taking photographs of her surroundings. In her working process, it has become increasingly important to face fundamental questions by meeting and observing her subjects in authentic situations.
Vuorenmaa’s recent solo exhibitions include Helsinki Contemporary, Finland (2019), EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland (2016), Gallery C4 projects, Copenhagen, Denmark (2014), Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark (2014). Her work has also been seen in group exhibitions e.g. at Gallery Thomassen, Gothenburg, Sweden (2017), Landskrona Konstmuseum, Sweden (2017), Salo Art Museum, Finland, Bury Art Museum & Sculpture Centre, Manchester, England, Amos Andersons Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland (2015), Edsvik Konsthall, Sollentuna, Sweden. Vuorenmaa’s works are found in public collections such as the Gothenburg Museum of Art, Saastamoinen Foundation, EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Amos Anderson Art Museum, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and Helsinki Art Museum.