HANNA KANTO

Savotta

HANNA KANTO

Halmetoja Gallery
6.9–29.9.2024

 

Savotta is Hanna Kanto’s first exhibition at Gallery Halmetoja. It continues on the path of the extensive solo exhibition seen at the Rovaniemi Art Museum last autumn and is the first solo exhibition in Helsinki since Kanto graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in 2022. Her previous solo exhibition in the Helsinki metropolitan area was at tm-galleria in 2019.

 

Hanna Kanto depicts the relationship between human and nature on both a practical and complex level. The exhibition includes paintings that combine organic matter with mechanical apparatus. It is difficult to separate nature from the machine, and there seems to be no need for it. The human way of producing sustenance, of exploiting living elements, is subtly present in paintings where translucent lines dominate the composition.

 

In the majority of the works, however, human is the protagonist. A nomadic forager who creates in a world of berries, mushrooms and firewood, merging with nature to such an extent that the paintings’ embodiment is surreal in places. Human would be part sponge, part nest for insects and only partly an independent agent.

 

The works, which exude power and humour, are images of a world in which the various elements merge so naturally that reality appears as a symbiotic and aesthetically coherent whole. This does not mean, however, that Kanto simplifies the complex world in a naïve way. Rather, she constructs a metaphor for a kind of alternative approach. Savotta is a world where only the prey matters: mushrooms and twigs – food and warmth. The fantasy of a clearer world is a kind of quiet rebellion. It is not nostalgic fluff but a genuine alternative.

 

The paintings, full of detail, have retained their sonority, but they are not ethereal. The airy composition is tense, the colour palette strong and the surface texture very deliberately constructed. Kanto’s paintings have seemingly simple names, but they have depth. The Mushroom Picker(Sienestäjä) and the Lumberjack  (Tukkijätkä) are Kanto’s interpretations of iconic archetypes. Familiar to all of us, even identifiable to some, they are figures through which it is interesting to mirror one’s own identity. Everyone has a place in this Savotta.

 

Veikko Halmetoja