Johanna Pöykkö :
To Long For Something

"The exhibition consists of paintings where the painting paste and the material below it has disappeared. The rhythm reflects that of the lace in old bedsheets. The reference to lace bedding introduces the thoughts of past, repetition, and change. I mirror the past to present, memories to reality.

Old Finnish bedsheets traditionally had a narrow lace strip at one end, and that was folded on top of the blanket. In the 1960s, duvet covers begun to replace the traditional bedsheets, forgotten in cupboards and left there for the next generation to find. The silk sheets behind the painted fabric refer to silk blankets under the sheets.

The use of crochet lace as the starting point for my paintings is a pausing exercise. The exhibition started with three-part pieces. I would always paint three nearly identical pieces, and together these would form a single work. This repetition works in many directions: individual pieces in a series of repetitive works. In addition to the repeating subjects, I work on the material in a repetitive manner, I work it until the subject shows itself. The first fabric I cut with scissors. I was intrigued by the sheer simplicity, but it was too strenuous for my hands. Now, I paint the hole-patterned surface. I use a strong, sodium-bisulfate based paste that makes the brittle. To strengthen the process, I use a heat treatment, and afterward, I wash away the eroded, burnt material. My process has many stages: preparing the paste, painting, drying, heating, washing, drying, and ironing. I take my time with the elements. I have taken them with me to Hailuoto island’s autumn winds and on the frozen Oulu river. I watered down a sheet in the cold and let it freeze until it was hard. I observed its essence as part of the landscape.

I’ve been thinking: are we allowed to long for the easier times? The ease of things? Are we allowed to choose just the joy, beauty, and good from the past? What is the relationship between longing and holding on, capturing and remembering? Manual labor is a state you can return to. It means routines, repetition. Something constant among change. It means spending time with the thoughts of your own choosing. I can decide whether my thoughts take me back to the past, or try to find out the things that are worth saving in the present. We long for things outside of ourselves, but the longing comes from within, from trying to understand who we are. We need the longing, a promise of something better, holding ties with the past. A great longing is built within being human. Longing is a power that takes us forward."
 

Johanna Pöykkö (1977, Rovaniemi, Finland) is an Oulu-based textile and visual artist (TaM) with a passion for spatial works. In her art she deals with a person’s relationship with other people and the surrounding world. She uses sheet fabric as her material for passing on the information, and serigraphy and painting as her techniques. Pöykkö’s works have been exhibited in Oulu, Kemi, and Jyväskylä Art Museums, in Craft Museum of Finland, in the HAA Gallery of Helsinki Artists’ Association, in Galleria 5 of Oulu Artist’s Association, and Galleria Mältinranta of Tampere Artists’ Association. Johanna Pöykkö’s art is included in the collections of Oulu Art Museum, Kuopio Art Museum, and the City of Oulu, and in the permanent display of the new Oulu University Hospital.
 

Johanna Pöykkö's exhibition is supported by Kone Foundation.