{"id":1404,"date":"2024-02-21T02:07:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T02:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/?p=1404"},"modified":"2024-04-14T20:38:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T20:38:46","slug":"outi-pieski-review-an-entrancing-artist-with-her-heart-in-the-arctic-circle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/2024\/02\/21\/outi-pieski-review-an-entrancing-artist-with-her-heart-in-the-arctic-circle\/","title":{"rendered":"An entrancing artist with her heart in the Arctic Circle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From a Warholian riff on traditional S\u00e1mi dress to paintings of dark forests with eyes, Pieski mines her heritage to produce work that is both joyous and bleak<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

H<\/strong>ow can you keep an Indigenous cultural tradition alive in the rushing roaring modern world? How about by turning it into wallpaper? That\u2019s what Outi Pieski does in a work that humorously restages Andy Warhol\u2019s pop art cow wallpaper,<\/a> except the repeated image here is of a woman wearing a l\u00e1djogahpir<\/em>, a hat that was once part of the dress of S\u00e1mi women in northern Finland and Norway. It is red, warm, with a horn or crown on top that\u2019s the shape of an upturned shoe. The young women wearing this ancestral headgear with pride are part of a whole series of Arctic pop art works in which Pieski resurrects the l\u00e1djogahpir<\/em> and makes it visible again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She photographs the bright caps by themselves, in pairs, and being worn. This part of her entrancing exhibition at Tate St Ives<\/a> is set up, ironically, like a fashion store. It is the closest her work comes to the consumerist urban norms of 21st-century Europe. Her heart, however, is in the mountains and ice fields of the far north, in another time stream, where landscapes are alive and forests have eyes. She sees that world with the passion of a campaigner and the vision of a remarkable artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pieski was born in the modern world, Helsinki to be precise, in 1973 but she is of S\u00e1mi heritage. Her peoples have lived for millennia in the Arctic Circle, holding beliefs that are animistic and shamanist, many practising nomadic lifestyles with reindeer herds. Their traditional, bright costumes are practical for the icy far north. But the modern world\u2019s ability to force everyone into the same lifestyle has worn away S\u00e1mi survival at Europe\u2019s edge. Pieski is dedicated to fighting back.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Fighting<\/a>
Riot of colour \u2026 Sacred Mountain R\u00e1steg\u00e1isa as a Legal Person II. Photograph: Jussi Tiainen<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

So her art is joyous and bleak \u2013 a riot of colour in a vast eerie landscape of mountains and forests. Her pop art horn hats reclaim ritual in an approachable, witty way, but as you go deeper into this exhibition you are led into stranger places. Pieski\u2019s painting Close to the Aspens looms up at the far end, a very tall, narrow canvas that makes you feel you are actually in a forest, gazing up into trees that seem as high as real trees. And this wood is haunted. Out of the aspen trunks above your head, two eyes darkly glisten. It is impossible to tell what creature possesses these huge orbs \u2013 but it isn\u2019t human. Maybe a shaman, however, could enter the being that has those eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More eyes stare back at you from a black gnarled roiling hillscape, like a world newly congealed from cooling lava, in another big painting that Pieski says is \u201ca tribute to the persons who taught me to protect myself from evil spirits\u201d. These paintings are wonderful. Her acrylics manifest the far north with an intense reality and unreality. A banded Arctic sky, layers of pale colour in the weak sun, makes you think of Edvard Munch. An expanse of brittle ice has the chilling majesty of JMW Turner\u2019s paintings of Arctic whalers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Anselm Kiefer<\/a>, however, Pieski wears her talent for painting almost casually. She suggests this by nestling her landscape art in woven, multicoloured S\u00e1mi artefacts that transform the paintings into spells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her canvases are hung with hand-knotted tassels made with a S\u00e1mi technique called duodji<\/em>. These twists and strands of colour don\u2019t merely frame but existentially alter the paintings: they irradiate the icy worlds she paints with life and brightness. Who knew there were so many yellows, blues, oranges \u2013 duodji<\/em> comes in a subtle ecstasy of hues. The myriad threads don\u2019t glow luridly like city lights. Instead they illuminate nature with elusive filaments, like sunlight refracted through a melting icicle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The S\u00e1mi craftwork settings make Pieski\u2019s paintings feel like objects to be used in incantatory rites to restore the powers of nature. This mystical intention is clear in her installation at the heart of the show, not least from its title: Put a Spell on You. It\u2019s composed of hand-knotted tassels hanging in gigantic mobiles that surround you and subject you to a kind of magical binding.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Magical<\/a>
Magical \u2026 Outi Pieski. Photograph: Heikki Tuuli<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

From inside this cathedral of northern light her paintings are positioned like compass points: one way leads to the towering spirit in the aspen trees, another to a dark feathery slash in a landscape of snow and ash. This big painting is a homage to a mountain in Norway named R\u00e1steg\u00e1isa. But she isn\u2019t evoking it for art\u2019s or even magic\u2019s sake. The painting is called Independent Right to Exist and Flourish: it is a plea for this mountain sacred in S\u00e1mi culture to be recognised as a legal person with its own inherent rights.skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a force we need. In the Indigenous vision of the world that Pieski translates into such good art, there is no impermeable barrier between humans and nature. The forests have eyes, the sun inhabits a knotted braid. The Arctic and its peoples may be imperilled. But this truly original artist can make you feel one with its mountains and seas, its peoples and spirits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Outi Pieski is at Tate St Ives until 6 May<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPD. As you maybe already know, soon will be start a new international platform for young artists. The Art.Youth Market and Exhibition will be held on March 2-6 as part of the World Youth Festival 2024. More than 2,500 artists, designers and craftspeople expressed interest in participating in the Festival. Young people from 110 countries, including Argentina, Turkey, Vietnam, Germany, Indonesia, South Africa and others, expressed their desire to exhibit their works at this new international platform.
Our team keep fingers crossed, for participants from any parts of Arctica in this Art.Youth Market and Exhibition. #WYF2024<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heritage to produce work that is both joyous and bleak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cooperation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1586,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions\/1586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arcticwatch.info\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}