A recent exhibition at SIC—one of Helsinki’s numerous artist-run exhibition spaces—exhibited a group of works by artists having the courage to experiment in painting. Curated by Inga Meldere and Aino Lintunen, and given the intriguing rubric The Moon Bends Back, the splendid character of these works springs from their impromptu nature and the makers’ unrestrained mindset. Their approach encompasses a willingness to mess around.
The text on SIC’s website put it this way: They “approach painting from its muddy, strange, dreamy and wondrous corners.” And while a significant number of compositions by Pamela Brandt, Victor Gogly, Ieva Putniņa, and Elīna Vītola were planar, those that really stood out dissociated themselves from the 2-dimensionality of traditional surfaces—namely the wall and the canvas.
That act of dispersing elements throughout the space, in fact, nearly caused me to miss Ieva Putniņa’s Flatter bite (2024). Mounted in a small, scruffy and visually chaotic antechamber, it hovered on the edge of being unnoticeable. Finding that space to be disquieting, my immediate response was to quickly move through it. But quelle surprise! Thanks to SIC’s clear floor plan, I learned that I had missed something and returned to it.
There I discovered a cramped mirror room peppered with Ieva Putniņa’s little butterfly assemblages. What a joy to scrutinise this mysterious vision, which replicated itself in all directions to some imperceptible vista. Boasting all sorts of colour, patterns and wing configurations, this array of insects recalled the animated butterfly rooms at some zoos, as well as the childhood memory of immense throngs of resting monarchs that blanketed bushes and trees during their annual migrations south.
Standing in contrast to Putniņa’s ethereal illusion is Elīna Vītola’s series of “Line” paintings—another engaging work. Condensed into small, weighty coils of painted canvas that, to a limited degree, have also been uncoiled, these curious works represent the raw material—bolts of canvas waiting to be cut to size—and the finished composition—generally unseeable, but executed in the traditional medium of oil.
They also convey other aspects. I, for example, see them asking viewers to compare their estimated weights and the linear distances they might traverse when fully unrolled. Vītola urges viewers to consider such characteristics by juxtaposing both states in this rather haphazard arrangement of closed and open paintings—works that can easily be shelved or pulled apart to intertwine and loop around a nearby structure. The latter capability confirms that they also have a performative function.
The third and final work to highlight is Symbioscene, the most cosmic thing in the show. At first glance, the collaboration—the appropriately titled creation was conceived by Ieva Putniņa, Elīna Vītola and the project’s curators—appears unearthly, more like an entity that is floating in space. Though it is static, it seems to have been caught at a fascinating stage in its evolution. Its nebulous traits are accentuated in these images.
Ongoing investigation shows of these images it also comes across as a nascent landform. That suggestion was more obvious in the gallery where it seemed to float on the building’s shiny white floor. One spies mounds and depressions, and a couple of craters that may contain something that was—or is—molten. Various other kinds of substances wreak havoc with the ground, which is otherwise dry, granular and porous. They stain the topography or appear to ooze out of its surface at various locations.
No dimensions have been provided for this work. If memory serves me correctly, I would say that it was about two or two and a half meters long. For me, Symbioscene offers a contemporary exponent of the ancient and not so ancient art of sandpainting. Long practiced by the Navajo, indigenous Australian peoples and Tibetans, its popularity extended to the Victorian period and Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico. The work, in addition, recalls the characteristics of successful abstract paintings—works that, though they took days, maybe weeks to complete, appear to have been knocked out during a carefree afternoon of painting.
Though I would like to know more about how the work came together—who had the idea, how was it organised, who did what, how long it took and why they agreed to stop where they stopped—I very much doubt fresh memories of the experience are no longer fresh. Much like the work and sand itself, these particles of recollection have already been swept away by time.
The Moon Bends Back, SIC, Old Malmi Train Station, Helsinki, Finland (16 March — 21 April 2024)
Eyeballing art 