Image: Eero Yrjölä – Little Boy Blue, 2023

Eero Yrjölä: BABY BLUE   

I’ve had dreams about these rooms, in these rooms. Emotions a child cannot understand. Behind these walls, under the floor, feelings I forgot.  

For the exhibition, I have gone through old photos taken by my parents. I have learned that the image of a child is also an image of their parents and previous generations. Revisited and reimagined, the photographs embody the child’s dormant feelings and memories that finally demand to be seen.  

Jani Nummela’s (MA) essay “All the Blue Boys” touches on the themes in Eero Yrjölä’s art: identity, childhood, and memories. The text focuses on selected moments in queer and art history, such as the correspondence of Karl-Maria Kertbeny, who coined the term homosexuality, and the chronicle of the famous The Blue Boy painting. The essay reflects on past perceptions of sexuality and gender, seeking something recognizable and valuable.  

The essay is published in connection with the exhibition, and is currently available only in Finnish.  

Music is by sound artist Hannu Seppälä. 

The exhibition has been kindly supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Finnish Art Society and the Greta och Alfred Runebergs Stiftelse.  

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Eero Yrjölä (b. 1990) is a visual artist living and working in Helsinki. In their art, they deal 

with the experience of gender and growth. Personal artworks bring out painful, but also insightful moments from a lost queer childhood. Yrjölä works in different mediums, especially with installation.  

Yrjölä’s art has been exhibited in Turku City Art Museum WAM, and at the gallery of Finnish Institute in Stockholm, among others. They have artworks that belong to the art collections of Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and to several private collections. 

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