Helka Immonen
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HELKA IMMONEN  
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Texts, critics

Kulttuuritoimitus.fi  3.9.2021  Katri Kovasiipi  Galleriakatsaus: Menetelmien  ja työvälineiden kirjo tuottaa leikkiä, hauskuutta, hartautta ja värienergian jakamista
https://kulttuuritoimitus.fi/kritiikit/galleriakatsaus/galleriakatsaus-menetelmien-ja-tyovalineiden-kirjo-tuottaa-leikkia-hauskuutta-
hartautta-ja-varienergian-jakamista/

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Helka Immonen's delicate paintings are produced in a spirit of experimentation and sensitivity. They impel us to consider the color-field imagery that grounds her work in a

tradition of Modernist painting. Immonen’s inspired conception points to both a repudiation of the virtuosity of execution while it celebrates great declarativeness, as well as the

clarity of a wholistic vision. If the artist's work has a sense of purpose it might lie in its capacity to remind us as viewers that the concept of this type of expressive abstraction is

not the conceived in and of itself; it is instead what it is said of it a posteriori, after the work is finished. The intuitive aspect of the artist's artwork is paramount as its quality rests

on that intuitive factor.


The quality of the work also rests on the thing conceived as it is being conceived. Therefore it is really a dangerous thing to believe and to trust that in defining the work with

concepts (gravity, form, certain colors and striations, art-historical genealogy) we get to know the objects more intimately, more persuasively. The opposite of course is true: we

distance ourselves from such work if we over-intellectualize it. It is as if we intellectualized the notion of time instead of becoming more and more aware of it simply by being in its

flow and duration.


A summer breeze or tidal current causes the vegetation within it to undulate with pulsating rhythms. The ocean and wind ripple the sand. Whispered sounds vibrate the tympanic

membrane, inducing a shift in the air transforming its movements into electrical waves. In looking at Immonen’s sensitive works one could easily infer non-objective patterns

which are representations of the tracks of subtle transferences of energy between gentle geologic forces and natural bodies.


What becomes abundantly clear in looking, as a whole, on Helka Immonen’s artworks, is the artist's indispensable capacity to attain a certain emotional involvement.  These

include attempts at defining a sense of history, of memory and of the self. Resisting completely sentimentalizing components in her work for the benefit of enlarging the scope of

her authenticating journey into creativity, Immonen’s abstractions grapples with divided loyalties. The forces of positive ambiguity surge through her work; the result is visual

traces of integrative wholeness that are nothing short of inspiring and nothing less than beautiful to behold.


Press release    

Solo exhibition  9.10.-27.10.2013, Artifact Gallery, New York USA 

immonen_press_releasenyc.pdf

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Die Finnin Helka Immonen erreicht durch ihre lasierend aufgetragene Farbe ein hohes Maß an Transparenz und eine ungewöhnliche Durchsichtigkeit, die den Hintergrund und

die abstrakten Formen in einen farblich geheimnisvoll akzentuierten Raum verwandelt, der den Betrachter magisch anzieht. Achten sollte man dabei auf die unterschiedliche

Dichte, in der der Farbauftrag erfolgt, denn durch diese sensibel austarierten Nuancen balanciert sie das Gleichgewicht zwischen dem tiefschichtigen Hintergrund der Körper, die

vor diesem wie im freien Raum schwebend erscheinen, aus.


Dr. Helmut Orpel, Laudatio 26.04.2013, Group exhibition 26.4.-30.9.2013, GALERIE BÖHNER, Mannheim Germany

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The Chinese-Japanese equivalent for the word “na­ture” properly connotes something like “being so from out of itself.” Similarly the ancient Hebrew word Ein Sof can be

translated as “The Endless One” and otherwise translated as “Nothingness Without End.” Nature, being, nothingness, transcendence - these are themes that resonant most

strongly with the paintings of Helka Immonen. For several years, Helka Immonen has been creating shimmering, abstract oil paintings that use evocative, romantic colors to con­

vey a sense of spirituality. The legacies of history are riddled throughout her work from the Italian Frescoes of Domenico di Michelino to the Suprematist art of Malevich to the

color fields of Mark Rothko. The in­tense, perceptual effect of her work allows for con­templation; revealing itself as thin veils of layered pigment. Concentrated and expansive, her

work employs a soft geometry on a perfect square format. Her works symbolically present simple, yet extraordi­narily powerful thoughts and feelings.

When Kasmir Malevich founded Suprematism in 1915 he sought an art of ultimate reduction. Work­ing within a hard-edge geometric lexicon, his revo­lutionary technique enabled

him to construct images that had no reference at all to reality. Lines, rectan­gles, and squares were offset at diagonals creating compositions that shared an affinity with the

mental processes of analysis, reflection, and the formation of thought. Mark Rothko began painting his mature color field paintings in the late 1950s, creating large

monochromatic rectangles that seemed to hover in a floating space. He wanted his work to evoke tran­scendent emotional states such as ecstasy, joy, and doom. Helka Immonen

draws from this legacy with­out a hard edge articulation of forms in space or the heroic grandstanding of Abstract Expressionism. Rather, her sensuous, ovoid forms seem to slip

in and out of grasp, veiled between curtains of transparency. In this sense, there is a perceptual barrier that exists between the viewer and the object of our desire. This removal of

objectivity allows us to contemplate the “image” as a sign of transcendence, one that super­cedes materiality. Her deft skill and beautiful use of aerial or atmospheric interference

creates a dazzling affect. This affect, which Leonardo called “the per­spective of disappearance,” tends to make objects seem to take on a blue-gray middle value as they in­crease

in distance. Yet with Immonen’s work there is no background/foreground relationship, rather the image disappears within the same breadth that it is recognized. This is pure

abstract painting.


A particularly striking work, Island 2, contains a pink vertical band that rests atop a field of greenish yellow. Within the green field is a yellow-orange ovoid shape that dissipates

into the surrounding field. The pastel-like colors glisten in an incredibly refulgent manner. As the central yellow form disappears into nothing­ness we are mystified by the

transience of this quiet moment. Immonen’s technique is incredibly mature and evocative. It requires that we slow down our hyper-mediated vision to focus on quiet moments of

heightened sensory perception. She comments, “af­ter staying in a residence in Florence, Italy and seeing the frescoes in churches and monasteries, I absorbed a new method to

paint. I started to use softer, poly­chromatic areas of colors and construct the painting by adding several thin layers of color on the canvas. I wanted the underlying layers of

colors to be visible, to create surfaces of transparent colors. The pure and human spiritual content of the frescoes affected me as well. I began to express my inner feelings

through abstract forms and colors.”


By isolating our experience of formal events on the picture plane she creates a space of ultimate contem­plation. Edmund Husserl first introduced this meth­odology of isolating or

“bracketing” experiences in 1906. By bracketing an experience we reserve our ini­tial judgments, previous encounters, and ethical con­siderations as a priori. Instead, Husserl

suggested the exclusion from consideration of everything that is tran­scendent and anything else derived via scientific or logical inference; and instead focus only on what was

immediately presented to one’s consciousness. Per­haps more than any other image, Island captures the Zen-like epistemological notion of Husserl’s thinking. Immonen relates,

“The influences of visual stimuli are filtered through my personal feelings and experiences, whether it concerns the content, colors, composition or space of the painting.”


Another groundbreaking work in her oevure is titled Oasis. This work takes an almost literal interpretation of painting as window. Here a yellow-green U-shape brackets a

rectangle of pale blues, pink, and light green. The bottom edge of the rectangle vanishes into the yellow expanse. This editing gesture is self-reflexive. Here Immonen

simultaneously makes a mark that both affirms and denies material existence. The rectangle in the top center of the canvas is a formal doorway. Entering this picture plane

means to visually go beyond it. Transcendence literally means “going beyond.” In one sense, transcendence refers to the re­gion of “otherness,” whatever lies beyond or is other,

especially other than one’s self. The title is suggestive as well. Oasis could be synonymous with Paradise or Heaven, yet it could also be a mirage in the desert, as the yellow light

suggests. The ambiguity of its essen­tial meaning creates a compelling element of mystery.

Helka Immonen’s search for new forms of expres­sion has led her to create mature color field paintings, which employ shimmering colors and soft geometries. Her work is dynamic

yet quiet, emanating a light from within. Collectively, they communicate sentiments that lie beyond articulation, leading us to a place that transcends the material world.


Helka Immonen   Articulating Transience 

Rose Hobart 

NY Arts Magazine Vol. 17/Summer 2011   nyarts_17_2011.pdf    http://nyartsmagazine.net/?s=helka+immonen


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Helka Immonen è un’artista che ha saputo trovare un proprio linguaggio espressivo, molto vicino all’astrattismo prendendo elementi tecnici da altri maestri del passato come

Rotko o le velature impalpabili di grandi maestri del rinascimento  o dei fiamminghi e alcuni colori acidi e fluo della pop art.


Osservando queste opere  non si direbbe che tutte queste influenze convivano in opere così delicate ed equilibrate. Il linguaggio di quest’artista è decisamente essenziale ed

ermetico ma l’uso delle sfumature  ci regala qualcosa in più una atmosfera emozionale unica. Isole e perle, i titoli delle opere. Metafore dell’essere umano. La solitudine dell’isola,

come la solitudine dell’uomo, non tanto in maniera fisica ma la solitudine dell’essere che dentro di sè crede uniche e meravigliose le proprie sensazioni dovuti agli stimoli esterni.

Sentimenti preziosi celati come perle preziose nel profondo e  che l’artista porta a galla in tutta la loro bellezza e lo fa con questi bellissimi oli su tela.


Per l’artista l’animo umano è un luogo puro , fonte di ispirazione, un luogo dal quale fare emergere il proprio io.  Per tale motivo dobbiamo gioire  della vita e carpire l’energia

che la natura ci regala  e che pervade il mondo.



Marcello Cazzaniga, Curator   2011

From Water Born Soul, Group exhibition 10.9.-25.9.2011, Villa Tittoni, Milano Italy


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This Finnish painter is one of the best expressions of the contemporary art, thanks to the essentiality and expressivity of her works. Chromatism is characterized by a continuous

research of an equilibrium among the different colours and their nuances. Her paintings seem to represent relentless flowers and boundless spaces recalling infinity.



​Luciano Lepri, Curator   2009

Fattezze di Donna, Solo exhibition 12.9.-11.10.2009, Fortezza Medicea Girifalco, Cortona  Italy


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Paintings of Helka Immonen are abstract - soft pastel tones of colours are related to emotionally charged feelings and experiences and the passing of time.

Helka Immonen´s brush strokes are gentle but firm, her paintings are very feminine. Her style is subtle and elusive, the colors and surfaces may refract in interesting directions.


Hanna-Riikka Kuisma, Author, art critic   2008   

Satakunnan kansa  18.5.2008

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The most prominent, often almost imperceptible tension of Helka Immonen´s paintings seems to develop when the artist, - while sketching a painting -  instead of attaching to

either abstract or figurative form, refrains from making a statement and proceeds in silence to ask the painting´s own, innermost mind.

 
This subtle openness brings about to the paintings an all but tangible feeling of boundaries – from abstract to figurative – from inside to outside – from closed to open spaces.

These contrasts create an impression of a line drawn in the sand in the ambient space of the paintings. It may happen that a door is opening where there was only colour or a

surface permeating light – at the last minute and so abruptly that not even a shadow will arise. Imperceptibly a time dimension has emerged in the painting - a perspective that

reveals a sight to its possibly prolonged morphogenesis in the mind of the artist.

Or the process is reverse: some element from the beginning of the painting process ´evaporates´ and becomes almost weightless with the passing of time. The outcome still shares

some of the traits of the initial phase: it is slow yet not lagging – aerial yet deep in its translucency.

 
It is perhaps fitting to describe the spatial states thus generated as ´innate´ and lacking all externality and artificiality.

 
Liisa Immonen, Author, poet   2006

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Pessi Rautio  Raikkautta väririnnastuksista

Helsingin Sanomat 19.4.2001 
 
https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000003962631.html                                                                                                                                 

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Pessi Rautio  Ovaali vai ufo 

Helsingin sanomat 15.4.1999   https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000003792638.html
                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                            

                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                                

                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                     

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