NORTH
MENNÄÄNKÖ UIMAAN
NURIA MARIA
So many summers North
The fresh day colours at evening turn warm
The sky turns into a field of flames
and the still water reflects the red and pink –
just before the moment the light never really fades
So many summers North
The night doesn’t fall
and the thin line stays.
SININEN II
2023. Acrylic on linen. 72 x 62 cm
MARIMEKKO BLUE PURPLE
2023. Acrylic on linen. 72 x 62 cm
RED SKY II
2023. Acrylic on linen. 72 x 62 cm
SININEN SMALL
2023. Acrylic on linen. 62 x 52 cm
KIVET GREEN GREY
2023. Acrylic on linen. 162 x 132 cm
STILL LIFE IN BLUE WHITE
2023. Acrylic on linen. 162 x 132 cm
This show is a homage to being in Finland at the family summerhouse.
Some paintings are inspired by the words our Finnish cousins used to teach us when we were kids: The basal character of my very limited Finnish ‘vocabulary’ unveils a world that is easy and uncomplicated. A beautiful summer life, focused on the nature around. A pretty perfect place to be in.
Shall we go swimming?/Mennäänkö uimaan?, beach/ranta, stones/kivet, food/ruokaa, good/hyvä , bread/leippää, boat/vene, sun/aurinko, water/vesi, house/koti, sauna, grass/ruoho, strawberrie/mansikka, dog/koira , stop/lopettaa , bison rat/biisoni rotta, etc.
It is a kind of life that focusses on basic actions. Chopping wood, making fire, washing in the sauna, night swims in the calm water. They work incredibly peaceful. Especially while being surrounded by the typical Northern nature, where everything feels fresh, clean and untouched. There is also a great melancholy in the landscape and in the light. The land is simultaneously soft and hard. The granite ground. The rough winters.
The soft summers. The fresh air.
The repeating patterns in the paintings give a hint of the patterns of the Finnish design brand Marimekko. The classic stripes, flowers and stone-like forms are an indelible image in Finnish culture. In daily life you can’t go around the recognisable prints that show up everywhere. I can’t imagine not linking it to the country or the country to it.
‘NORTH – MENNÄÄNKÖ UIMAAN’ is a grasp of images out of a Finnish summer and traveling through Scandinavia. A reflection of spending summers with family and a homage to a magical country.
MARIMEKKO PINK GREEN
2023. Acrylic on linen. 162 x 132 cm
BLACK WHITE MARIMEKKO
2023. Acrylic on linen. 162 x 132 cm
RED SKY
2023. Acrylic on linen. 152 x 202 cm
SINISET KUKAT – BLUE FLOWERS
2023. Acrylic on linen. 162 x 132 cm
FINNISH BLUE – SINNEN
2023. Acrylic on linen. 162 x 132 cm
CRUVO 05
2023. Acrylic on handmade paper.
51,5 x 44 cm (framed)
47 x 40 cm (unframed)
“This place is where you can smell the season, hear the leaves blowing in the wind, here’s a certain type of light.
In the end, the most important thing is for me, to reflect, carry something to the outside world, that you feel within yourself; a perception of what lives inside you.
Something that catched your eye and made a whole world on its own in that moment, and you bring it out again. Like a Camera Obscura back and forth.
I can work from colours as a starting point, or a certain rhythm with forms, but the feeling that I have about exactly that moment and sentiment that I want to reflect, is always more important than the purely visible state of the painting. That is perhaps, why it can take either one day or a whole month to get the painting exactly the way I need it to be; I can find it pretty, (and I am very much on the aesthetics), but it has to catch a moment in the core.”
NORTH – MENNÄÄNKÖ UIMAAN is Nuria Maria’s first exhibition in our space in Madrid