Sirpa Särkijärvi Returns to the Joseph Nease Gallery in Duluth

Finnish painter Sirpa Särkijärvi was in Duluth this weekend to give an artist talk to a strong turnout at the Joseph Nease Gallery (JNG) here. This is Särkijärvi's second visit to the JNG here in Duluth, the first being with a powerful exhibition titled Transcriptions in 2019.

I was able to sit with her for a few minutes before her artist talk Saturday to discuss her current work and career. Sirpa, who is tall and slender, was wearing a pastel yellow dress with a Mickey Mouse image on the front. Her gentle appearance seems almost at odds with the volcanic force of her work, which she said emerges from within.

She talked about the psychological aspects of how the mind works, and about relationships, and how we learn about who we are through interactions with others. "Every person is different," which brings out different aspects of our selves.

detail from painting below

It was interesting to learn how Finland supports its artists and covers their expenses when they have exhibits abroad. It is as if the nation is proud to showcase its talents. 

Her current show has six pieces that are similar in power yet more complex than her 2019 show. Within the figures there are many other things happening as you can see here. I asked how this came about.

She replied that in 2005 she was doing something similar in that she had other things happening within the images beyond the images themselves. These new works, all created in 2022, draw from and incorporate some of that exploration. "I don't plan too much," she said, adding that she relies a lot on instinct.

The artist is originally from Northern Finland, in the vicinity of Lapland near the arctic. She now lives in the south, about 200 km from Helsinki.

When I asked about the influence of having come from such a cold, remote region, she said something that made me think of a conversation I had with Native American photographer Vern Northrup. Both Sirpa and Vern said the same thing: you have to prepare for winter. You don't take it for granted.

In Sirpa's case, she compared her painting approach to that very notion of preparation. She described what is involved with getting her acrylic paints to have a precise consistency. Her style is fluid so the paint must be very liquid. 

I said that it seemed her paintings had a bit of Francis Bacon influence, and she confirmed that there was some of that. And though quite different from Willem de Kooning, there's a sense of the same energy being released in the process. "I have to work quick," she said with regard to her own process. 

detail from painting above

"Because I'm a reasonable human being, when I paint I have to lose myself," she said. There a conscious side to her painting (preparation) and an unconscious side. "That's why I relax and connect to myself. There are no rules."

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Notes from Her Artist Statement

Sirpa at the JNG with Tara Austin
works in background

Särkijärvi (b. 1974 in Muonio) is currently based in Turku, Finland. She's interested in approaching her subjects from the perspective of literary deconstruction or critical reading, revealing hidden conflicts of meaning. She seems very in tune with the ideas that we are not isolated individuals. We cannot escape each other's' influence.

Her paintings are inspired by our motivations, needs and the inconsistency of our actions, which together form the complex entity that the artist attempts to reflect in her work. What is between the lines is also important.

Intertextuality, everything that has been experienced, seen and learned influences the artists's interpretation. Finally, viewers also receive and interpret everything in the painting through their own backgrounds and experiences.

Beginning of presentation at the JNG

Särkijärvi creates her paintings in several long and methodical painting sessions. Her method is technically demanding as she uses dozens of pre-mixed colors and it requires a lot of preparation, and development of the idea. Särkijärvi says that her goal is to immerse herself in the work so that painting becomes a tool for thought and contemplation. She paints with fluid acrylics onto a horizontal canvas where the paint flows and mixes to form planes of color, movements and strokes, and the fragmented structure creates illusions that change depending on the distance they are viewed from.

The vibrant and explosive material turns into considered and controlled images of humanity. The paintings seem at the same time out of control and closely controlled, just like the human mind often is.

Sirpa Särkijärvi lives and works in Turku but she was born in Muonio in Lapland. Her family's long history and deep roots in northernmost Finland have left their mark on her identity and influenced her visual approach.

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Related Link
Sneak Preview: Sirpa Särkijärvi
Joseph Nease Gallery  home page

Local Art Seen: Sirpa Särkijärvi's Transcriptions Comes Down Today

Last night the Downtown Duluth Art Walk had a number of things happening. I made it to a few, including one last visit to Sirpa Särkijärvi's exhibition at Joseph Nease Gallery. Särkijärvi is a Finnish painter whose striking images offer a visual smorgasbord of freedom within form. Her painterliness is inspirational and served as a prod to get back in the studio.

A new feature of the gallery, now in its third year, is a small reading room with comfortable chairs and a growing collection of art books. Each artist who has been featured at JNG is being asked to suggest three books which the gallery will purchase and add to their library. The gallery is already a quiet space to get away. This added inspirational accompaniment will benefit all who take advantage of it. (The Tweed has a great library of art books as well, far more comprehensive, but less convenient for a lunch hour getaway--unless you work on campus.)

Here are photos I took last night in order to share here in the event you failed to get downtown for this show.

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detail from another piece.

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detail from the above

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What art books would you recommend?

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A nice little getaway where you can make yourself at home.

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For more information on Sirpa Särkijärvi, visit the artist’s website sirpasarkijarvi.com.

For more information on Joseph Nease Gallery, visit josephneasegallery.com.

Local Art Seen: Sirpa at the JNG and a Flask Exhibition

Last night there were several openings of note in Downtown Duluth. The Sirpa Särkijärvi opening at Joseph Nease Gallery is all the evidence we need to affirm the value of this addition to the arts community. The Finnish painter, herself present, was greatly appreciated by the crowd of art enthusiasts who gathered for the freshly hung exhibition.

Down the street you could also attend two other shows: The Flask Exhibition at the Nordic Center and WTF (What The Feminist) at the PROVE.

The Flask exhibition was subtitled A Focus on Form and Function. The show featured flasks a flagons of all shapes an sizes. Flasks have been used in Nordic and other cultures throughout history for carrying liquids from place to place. We saw them in the form of canteens on TV Westerns as kids. The flasks in this show, curated by Karen Keenan and Bob Dearmond, were produced from clay, wood, metal, glass and fiber by area artists, an intriguing theme with some remarkably inventive "products."

It was fun to see the variety of names we have given to our containers. Jugs, flasks and decanters were most common. There were also glasses, a funnel, and a growler, all for sale at reasonable prices, considering these pieces were also art.

Artists who contributed included Bob Dearmond, Erin Eitsch, Richard Cruchalla & Carrin Rosetti, Bob & Cheryl Husby, Elzabeth James and Jim Klug, Clayton Johnson, Karen Keenan, Karin Kraemer, Loiselle D Lehigh, Michael Maguire, May Anne Malm, Yarrow Mead, Kathryn Mongan-Rallis, Rita Morris & Barry Sands, Robin Murphy, Dan Neff, Anne Wolfe Nichols, Denise Perry, Mike Simieja, Sheila Staubus and Julie Zenner.

Gallery hours for the Flask Exhibition are from 1-4 p.m. on March 23, 24 and April 6, 7 as well as on March 29 from 5-8 p.m. during the Downtown Duluth Art Walk.

The space was crammed, but not impossibly so. Friends and fans made their way through, many of them sifting down into the WTF space where it may have been easier to make an exit.

Transcription 57 (She) by Sirpa Särkijärvi @ the Joseph Nease Gallery

Sirpa Särkijärvi

The Joseph Nease Gallery offers a versatile space for a art appreciation.

Sneak preview of what I saw at the PROVE's WTF show & will share soon.

Meantime, art goes on all around you. Engage it.

Sneak Preview: Sirpa Särkijärvi's Transcriptions at the Joseph Nease Gallery

Tonight Joseph Nease Gallery will for the first time feature an artist from outside the United States with an exhibition of over twenty new works by Finnish painter Sirpa Särkijärvi. The reception will be from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

Since opening in October 2017, the contemporary art gallery has facilitated artistic exchange in Duluth by bringing in artists from around the country, and in particular from throughout the Heartland and the Kansas City region, where owners Joseph and Karen Nease previously curated a gallery. This current exhibition, titled Transcriptions, marks a departure from this trend.

As you can see here the Finnish painter has an impressive energetic style. In person the paintings are even more striking, in part due to the scale, and also because of some technical effects. By using a matte, uniform colored background, the glossy, multi-colored images pop from the canvas. The overall impact is dramatic.

Särkijärvi is based in Turku, a city on the southwest coast of Finland about two hours west of the capital Helsinki. She was born in Muonio in the Lapland area of Finland north of the Arctic Circle, a region that experiences 24/7 darkness a portion of the year and 24/7 daylight in mid-summer.

Särkijärvi’s travels have taken her far from Finland, where she has earned an established position in the arts scene. Her work has been shown in Spain and Berlin, drawing inspiration from her experiences in places as distant as Beijing and California. The title of this series, begun in 2015, references her artistic process of soaking in the environments she visits before translating them to the canvas.

“The idea behind the name is that these aren’t just about my inner world, but that I kind of write notes on a paper according to what I hear or about what I perceive,” Särkijärvi told Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat in 2017. “Everything comes from the surrounding world, what I see and experience, and what other people experience. I turn it into a picture, like as if it were an engram of our time.” *

How did it come about that Särkijärvi's work is appearing at the Joseph Nease Gallery here in Duluth? In 2011 the artist had work in a Kansas City show where the Neases' gallery was located until until moving to the Northland two years ago. The Neases were impressed with the work and never forgot the artist behind it. The plans for this Duluth exhibition unfolded when the Neases learned that Särkijärvi had received a grant from Finland to exhibit internationally.

“Right at the outset, the Finland connection seemed like a suitable fit for the region, especially in view of the many Scandinavian immigrant communities that settled along the North and South shores of Lake Superior,” said Joseph Nease.

As it turns out, Särkijärvi herself has distant ties to the region.

“Sirpa told us that her great-grandfather visited the Iron Range area and traveled along the north shore before the First World War,” said Karen Nease. “According to Sirpa, he planned to migrate to Minnesota. But when he went back to Finland to bring his family over, World War I broke out and he wasn’t able to return.”

Särkijärvi will be in Duluth for the exhibition’s opening reception tonight and will spend a few days here seeing the area.

“It’s interesting to see how multiple generations of Sirpa’s family have been drawn here," said Joseph Nease. “We’re very pleased to help write a new chapter in a story that started decades ago, so to speak, by showcasing Sirpa’s work in Duluth.”

According to the press announcement:
Her Transcription series blends the portrait and the landscape traditions to create hybrid compositions in which the subject and the background discernibly influence each other. Särkijärvi’s earlier painting series going back to 2011 typically depicted a lone person, often female, in surroundings that were identifiably interior or exterior spaces. In 2015, she shifted her focus to place a greater emphasis on the individual or individuals in a field of emotionally-charged color.

Sirpa Särkijärvi was born in the Lapland town of Muonio in 1974. The Turku-based painter’s systematic process of working with fluid acrylics on a horizontal canvas has distinguished her within the Finnish art scene and abroad, with exhibitions in Spain, Berlin, and Helsinki as well as Kansas City, Missouri in the United States. Her paintings are known for their swirling, flowing colors and tension, reflecting themes from gender and behavior norms, to marginalization, exclusion, and power. 

For more information on Sirpa Särkijärvi, visit the gallery website and the artist’s website sirpasarkijarvi.com.

For a chance to meet the artist and see her newest paintings in the Transcription series, be sure to attend the opening reception tonight at Joseph Nease Gallery. More than twenty of Sirpa Särkijärvi’s paintings, all completed in 2018, will be on display at the gallery until June 1, 2019.

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Joseph Nease Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in the downtown art district of Duluth, Minnesota. Similar in scope to its progenitor in Kansas City, Missouri, the gallery features exhibitions of painting, sculpture, installation, and new media by artists regional, national and international. Since its October 2017 opening, the restored building at 23 West First Street has established an arts destination providing educational and social opportunities for art lovers, collectors, and visitors to the north shore of beautiful Lake Superior. For more information on Joseph Nease Gallery, visit josephneasegallery.com.

EdNote: Simultaneously, there is also an event at The Nordic Center titled Flask Exhibition: Focus on Form and Function running from 6:00 to 8:30. The weather will be perfecto. Include a little art in your evening plans tonight.

* Sirpa Särkijärvi quotes from: “Scenery Enters the Human,” Turun Sanomat, published Oct. 23, 2017.