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13.-25.8. Maria Sorjonen: Table is laden, clock is ticking



Opening: 13.8.2024, 16-21


Opening hours:

14.-18.8.

wed-fri 14-19

sat-sun 12-16


20.-25.8.

tue-fri 17:15-20

sat-sun 11-16



The table is laden with food, and the dry cake is the driest I’ve ever tasted in my life. All the people are old, and I’m standing straight in an uncomfortable outfit. The ryijy is the only soft thing amidst the fake smiles, shiny wooden furniture, and the ticking of the clock. It’s soft; you can sink into it.


No one has visited this house in a long time. The air is damp, and the wood is rotten. There are dead flies everywhere. Nothing has moved or changed. Except for time. I’ve never been to this house, but I remember what these photos are about.



My work is based on an archive I’ve collected, which includes family photos from 1944-1990 and old photographs that ended up in flea markets or dumpsters. I find it interesting how a picture has captured a physical trace or a glimpse of something that has long passed. It’s both fascinating and emotional to find a person’s entire life depicted in a single box. Two euros a piece.


I get to bring the people in the pictures to life in my mind; as I paint, I engage in an imaginary correspondence with them. Something real mixes with the imagined, and real memories blend with false memories. The false memories mix with new false memories.


I have a window into someone else’s perspective: often a masculine perspective. Most of my family photos were taken by men. In this network of memories, I get insights into what was important for them to capture and what was interesting in everyday life in Sevettijärvi or at a riding stable in North Karelia. Upon closer inspection, what seems like obvious social practices can feel strange and alienating. Through my artistic work, I can examine these manifestations from a distance and present them in a different light. I’ve worked with this theme for a long time, and this exhibition is a small selection of the topic.


The exhibition consists of oil and tempera paintings combined with ryijy. Making ryijy knots is time-consuming and slow. Mechanical repetition of the same movement. The yarn used is recycled, and the patterns emerged as I tied the knots, as if tying thoughts into the fabric, one knot at a time.


I am a painter born in Lappeenranta, graduated from the Free Art School, and currently studying painting at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki.

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