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Mouthfuls of Contemporary Art in Lapland and Beyond
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Doig's Painting and Berlin
By Misha del Val
This is a painting by Scottish-born, Trinidad-based artist Peter Doig. My long, scruffy figure quivered as I stood in front of it at CFA gallery, the mid-winter morning I first set foot in Berlin, back in 2009. That day... (read more)
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Aine
By Misha del Val
Eila Aine was a discreet, unassuming, well-travelled mother of four who, for a day job, would look into other silent people’s wide open mouths. She read avidly, was a person awake to the current affairs... (read more)
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Staalo Turns 50
Misha del Val for Kielmukka magazine
​We arrived, as usual, a few minutes late. The room at Käki was poorly illuminated, had a mistreated piano in one corner, theatre props scattered here and there, and the unmistakable smell of self-conscious youth. 
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As Above, So Below
By Misha del Val
I try to remain sensitive during our painting sessions, so that the actual handling of paint dictate the direction of the work and the emergence of the characters. In a way, I don't feel qualified... (read more)
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Untitled (Self-portrait)
By Misha del Val
It was during an evening Raisa and I felt particularly buoyant and spirited, despite the snow being stacked outside in colossal piles, far too large for that time of the year, and the world still gnashing its teeth... (read more)
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Musta Kissa ja Galleria Valo
By Misha del Val
Three worthy reasons took me to Rovaniemi last week: a train south to fetch madre from Helsinki; the wicked celebrations in Musta Kissa for the 40th year amongst us of the Pharaoh... (read more)
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Spirit of North vol. 10
By Misha del Val
I had a day off in Rovaniemi and decided to spend it in one of my favourite places in town: the Korundi House of Culture. I prowled for the second time through the ‘Spirit of North’ vol. 10 exhibition... (read more)
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The Story of the 4 Self-portraits
​By Misha del Val
I painted these self-portraits in a couple of hours, covering unfinished paintings, with the aid of a small mirror, listening to punk rock music, at the Old Potato Shed, Robertson, Australia, where I then had my studio...  (read more)
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Tiwi Mob Bus
By Misha del Val
​A bunch of Tiwi-Islanders roam through the desert plains squeezed in a mini-bus. This is ‘Tiwi Mob Bus’, a picture I painted many years ago while living at Pirlangimpi community in Melville Island, about 80 km.... (read more)

Spirit of North vol. 10

13/12/2020

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‘Spirit of North’ vol. 10
Rovaniemi Art Museum, 21.9.2019 – 26.1.2020


I had a day off in Rovaniemi and decided to spend it in one of my favourite places in town: the Korundi House of Culture. I prowled for the second time through the ‘Spirit of North’ vol. 10 exhibition, a collaboration of artists from Tohoku (Northern Japan) and Lapland.

The ‘Spirit of North’ cultural project, initiated by a group of artists from Tohoku as a means to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster that shook the region in 2011, is today an international program involving artists from Japan and various Nordic countries. The driving force of this program is to explore common ground in how spirituality is fathomed and expressed in Tohoku and other northern regions in the globe. The 10th volume of ‘Spirit of North’ spreads over three rooms at Korundi House and includes paintings, video art, performances, sculptures, installations and drawings.

​Artists/curators Yosiko Maruyama and Helena Junttila have put their hands, brains and hearts together to bring about a compelling show marked by an eerie hum. A sincere quest to explore and honour the domain of the spirit can be sensed throughout the works in the exhibition. One finds it a bit more tricky, though, to spot the ‘Northern’ aspect of the exhibition’s title in terms of content or form within the artworks, and it just seems to denote the origin of the artists in the exhibition.
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Hiroaki Nakatsugawa, Light Shining Fleet, acrylic on canvas, 2013
​Korundi offered a program of art performances in parallel to the ‘Spirit of North’ exhibition. Last month at the opening night, when I visited the exhibition the first time, Titta Court and Auri Ahola premiered ‘Tykky’, their latest piece in collaboration. The artists dressed in what it looked like a patchwork of sleeping bag fabrics that obliterated the shape of their bodies and fuelled associations between the forms of humans and trees. Something magical took place during the performance: the piece’s slow pace, generous spaciousness, immersive music and unexpected forms brought to life the paintings by Japanese artist Hiroaki Nakatsugawa, also present in the same room, which, in turn, provided an unparalleled atmosphere for the performance piece.

​During my second visit to the show, now alone in the room, I took the time to digest more fully Nakatsugawa’s work. His almost monotone, gestural paintings are highly evocative, nevertheless, as great paintings usually do... 
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    Misha del Val is a Lapland-Based visual artist, writer, independent curator and meditation enthusiast.

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