Marjatta Hanhijoki: Visibly So 

13.11.2021 - 2.1.2022

In the world of Marjatta Hanhijoki, seemingly minor matters expand into meaningful stories, something small becomes great, and warmth fills the air. 

Marjatta Hanhijoki’s works are overflowing with storytelling and snippets of tales, a celebration of details and everyday observations. The artist’s creations masterfully bind together accounts of fascinating singularities, wider cultural-historical knowledge, and mundane flashes of existence in an enchanting manner.

This multi-faceted quality of storytelling plays a significant role in Visibly So, Kunsthalle Helsinki’s exhibition portraying Hanhijoki’s oeuvre with a wide scope. The themes which have been present in Hanhijoki’s work since the 1970s now enter into communication with the Kunsthalle’s interior spaces: the exhibition rooms feature depictions of interiors, the worlds of fashion models and children, and various other themes, from Japan to freshwater pearl mussels and skylarks at night.

The works featured in the exhibition showcase Hanhijoki’s artistic work from the 1970s until the present day. The works are by their nature multilayered, both literally and figuratively. A watercolour is born of tender coats of translucent colour, a charcoal drawing is layered from faint to pitch black, and a black-and-white graphic work decays from light to dark. Hanhijoki’s works invite the viewer to become immersed in the abundant world of a pictorial thinker.

The Parvs Publishing Company will publish a book on Marjatta Hanhijoki’s art in Autumn 2021. The book will include texts by Hanna Johansson and Erkki Anttonen.