PHOTOGRAPHIC GALLERY HIPPOLYTE
Kalevankatu 18 B, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
+358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Open: tue-fi 12:00-17:00, sat-sun 12:00-16:0011.9.-4.10.2009
Sandra Kantanen
Landscapes.
For as long as I can remember, I have been trying to combine painting and photography in different ways. In my earlier works, printed on painted metal sheets, I followed in the footsteps of Chinese landscape painters. In order to understand their way of thinking, I climbed almost obsessively all the sacred mountains in China. I took photographs in magnificent places, but only a few shots came close to my idea of the works of Chinese landscape painters. I finally realised that I cannot, nor do I want, to make the same kind of images – my picture-making begins with the premises of my own culture.In my latest work I have tried to free myself from limitations. I have even used negatives that previously seemed to me too perfect. I have also learned to accept my painterly blunders. The point is that a photograph and a painterly trace imply the presence of two different types of author. When we look at a picture, we first see the surface, and only later perceive what it represents. A trace in a painting implies that everything we see is on the surface: it is a convention, nothing but pigment on a surface, a self-demonstration, 'I was present here on this surface'. A photograph, on the other hand, claims to know something about reality: 'See, I climbed that mountain, this is what it looks like.' I feel that by borrowing the media of another visual tradition enables me to say something specifically about the nature of photography.
The pictures in this exhibition are landscapes from China, Japan and Tibet that I have manipulated digitally. The painterly effect is achieved by stretching things and covering pixels. In some pictures the effect resembles the kind of streaks made by a long exposure time. I am thinking about, when does the photograph end and become something else? What remains of a great landscape? Is it important that it really did exist?
Sandra Kantanen
Sandra Kantanen (b. 1974) is a photographic artist from Helsinki. She earned a Master in Fine Arts degree at the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2003. Some of her MA studies were completed in China at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Kantanen is interested in landscape and the relationship between painting and photography. Her work has been much influenced by Chinese landscape painting, and she uses its pictorial tradition to examine our relationship to nature. Sandra Kantanen has exhibited her work both in Finland and internationally. She has participated in numerous art fairs (including Paris Photo) and she is a member of the Helsinki School. Sandra Kantanen has works in many collections in Finland and abroad. Her previous exhibition was in June 2009 in Japan at Gallery Shiseido, Tokyo.
Sandra Kantanen, Untitled (Lake 2, fishpond), 2009
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Photographic Gallery Hippolyte Celebrates Its 30th Anniversary
Thirty years passed in December 2008 since the opening of Photographic Gallery Hippolyte. The gallery celebrates its anniversary year from 4 December 2008 to 29 November 2009 with a programme that includes exhibitions, a photographic festival, a cross-disciplinary art event and a residency. The anniversary events of Photographic Gallery Hippolyte are part of the Year of Photography 2009 programme. www.katse.orgPhotographic Gallery Hippolyte’s anniversary year has been supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Alfred Kordelin Foundation has supported the Year of Photography 2009.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Information and press images:
Petronella Grönroos, exhibitions co-ordinator
Photographic Gallery Hippolyte, +358 9 612 33 44, firstname.lastname@hippolyte.fi
www.katse.org
