We are proud to bring Finnish artist Sirpa Särkijärvi to Duluth. Her exhibition Transcriptions opened March 22 and runs through June 1, 2019. Sirpa is an accomplished painter and a rising star in the Finnish art scene, and we are pleased to share a little about her and her artwork:
Sirpa is a resident of Turku, Finland which is on the southern coast of the country west of the capital Helsinki. Sirpa is well known in her region having numerous gallery exhibitions. Her work is in several significant private and museum collections. She also was part of Dark Days, Bright Nights at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, MO in 2015. That exhibit was a survey of contemporary Finnish painting curated by the museum’s then Director Barbara O’Brien who has graciously agreed to write an essay for Sirpa’s exhibition at Joseph Nease Gallery.
She is a keen observer of culture in her native Finland, and is also a keen observer where she has traveled including such places as Beijing and Los Angeles. She “transcribes” these observations into her paintings, particularly capturing the effects of culture, the modern world, and the sometimes hidden pressures on individuals. Previous series of her paintings going back to 2011, typically depict a lone person or sometimes a couple, in identifiable surroundings (recognizable exterior or interior spaces). Starting in 2015, Sirpa adjusted her subject matter to focus on just the individual(s) in a field of emotionally charged color. This began her “Transcription” series starting with “Transcription I (Soldier)”. Since then, she completed 41 paintings in the series, prior to the current exhibition.
With the support of a grant from Finland for her to exhibit and travel abroad, we are pleased to show twenty of her newest paintings "Transcription 42" through "Transcription 62". This is the artists first solo exhibition outside of Finland. Sirpa was here for the March 22 opening, interviewed on local radio, and an interview was filmed in the gallery in both English and Finnish by Kelly Saxberg, a film maker from Thunder Bay, Canada. A link to the radio interview is here. At a later date, we hope to share some video from the gallery interview.
Please see Sirpa's artist page for additional information, images, and her bio.