HELKA IMMONEN
Texts, critics
Kulttuuritoimitus.fi 3.9.2021 Katri Kovasiipi Galleriakatsaus: Menetelmien ja työvälineiden kirjo tuottaa leikkiä, hauskuutta, hartautta ja värienergian 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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
Pessi Rautio Raikkautta väririnnastuksista
Helsingin Sanomat 19.4.2001 https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000003962631.html
--
Pessi Rautio Ovaali vai ufo
Helsingin sanomat 15.4.1999 https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000003792638.html
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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
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
--
Pessi Rautio Raikkautta väririnnastuksista
Helsingin Sanomat 19.4.2001 https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000003962631.html
--
Pessi Rautio Ovaali vai ufo
Helsingin sanomat 15.4.1999 https://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/art-2000003792638.html
