Leena Nio: Comfort Place
Galerie Forsblom January 13–February 12, 2023
Leena Nio (b. 1982) wraps visitors in a cozy, protective hug in her latest exhibition. The warm fuzziness can almost be sensed physically on one’s skin, like a comfy, soft knit. The imperfectly perfect loops of the knit, the runaway threads, and the unruly strands of hair and dog fur sticking to clothing are everyday details that capture life’s rich tapestry in all its imperfections. Her paintings remind us of the oft-comical, muddled-through moments we all encounter daily. Nio wanted to create an exhibition that both delights and offers comfort – both of which seemed necessary in our living times.
Nio’s choice of theme and technique stems from her profound interest in painting and its potential. She is constantly searching for ever-new perspectives, which she explores in-depth for a few years before moving on to her next area of interest. Everything ultimately flows in a cycle: in an unexpected moment of self-discovery, she recently found herself revisiting the themes of her graduate exhibition at the Academy of Fine Arts. Some specific themes and motifs insist upon bursting through, as if by themselves, and Nio allows them to bubble up as they will.
Composition and cropping are essential parts of Nio’s recent works. Her new paintings are, as it were, tightly cropped portraits that appear to focus on something secondary. The face is cropped out of the frame, drawing our attention to minor, irrelevant-seeming details. These minutiae may seem insignificant at first, but the more attention we pay them, the bigger they become.
Nio graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2010 and was awarded the Finnish Art Society’s Ducat Prize the same year. In 2021 she completed Dream Images, a commissioned artwork for the new Finnoo subway station. Last year, she and Kalle Nio completed a multidisciplinary piece for the Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA. In addition, her work is represented in many of Finland’s most important public art collections, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Saastamoinen Foundation Collection, and the Sara Hildén Art Museum.