HAA Gallery presents Echoing, swarming by Noora Kaunisto (Hall 1) and Vedenpintoja… by Isabel Pathirane and Ilkka Pitkänen (Hall 2) 4–28 May, 2023.

Welcome to the exhibition openings on Wednesday, 3 May 5–7 pm!

Image: Noora Kaunisto (left) and Isabel Pathirane & Ilkka Pitkänen (right)

Noora Kaunisto: Echoing, swarming (Hall 1)

”The house I grew up in was a living, breathing entity. It was a small, wooden building with two floors. I used to listen to the water running in its pipes. My grandfather had once sawn the house in half and given the other half to his brother, Uncle Tenho. Tenho used to pick fall dandelions for me, until cancer filled his stomach. In the middle of our kitchen floor there was a hatch that led into a small root cellar. It was the unhomely core of our very homely home, and it consisted of dirt, decomposition and fumes of ancient beings. There was also this smaller ventilation lid into the cellar. It was forbidden to remove the lid, fill the hole with one’s own face and take a deep breath.” 

In her work Noora Kaunisto explores atmospheres, interiors and timespans that have a sort of twisted feeling about them. She is interested in uncanny, flowing presences and different logics that bleed into one another. Sometimes uncanny grounds have fruitful, rebellious shades about them. In Kaunisto’s paintings there are often entities that seem to echo or recur, that waver in between several ways of being. In a similar way, some of her paintings also seek the borders of painting, drawing and 3D-installation. 

Noora Kaunisto is a visual artist working in Helsinki, born in Central Ostrobothnia. She is currently finishing her master’s degree in the Academy of Fine Arts, Helsinki. Formerly she has graduated as a professional painter from the Free Art School and as Ecologist and evolutionary biologist from the University of Jyväskylä. Kaunisto’s main mediums are painting and drawing, but she has also done some work in video art and sculpture. Her work has been exhibited in three solo exhibitions and several group exhibitions. 

Isabel Pathirane and Ilkka Pitkänen: Vedenpintoja… (Billows…) (Hall 2)

The exhibition by Isabel Pathirane and Ilkka Pitkänen entitled Vedenpintoja… (Billows…) explores the movement of the landscape and the sea. In their works the tradition of fine arts and romantic landscape art take on new forms. The exhibition includes paintings and media art, as well as works that blur the boundaries between different art forms. 

The work of Ilkka Pitkänen is supported by the Alfred Kordelin Foundation.