MARI RANTANENLeap of Faith 5.10.2024 – 27.10.2024

All art – including abstract art – is political. Mari Rantanen’s work does not depict the state of the world, but it directly affects viewers’ emotions and experiences through geometric shapes, colour and light, shaping their thought processes and relationship to the environment. Rantanen employs a palette of colours – oranges, pinks, yellows, greens and purples – that spread across the canvases in various shapes, forever creating new associations and patterns: meaningful narratives. Surprising colour combinations generate the impression of positively dazzling light. The symmetry of the shapes and patterns that often appear in repeated series brings order and discipline to the surfaces of her paintings. However, her use of geometry is not hierarchical; she weaves together different patterns of equal weight. The purpose of her colourful works is to generate positive energy, which is exactly what this conflict-ridden and chaotic world needs at this moment.

Mari Rantanen is one of the most important innovators in Finnish painting, and she has consistently followed her own path over a more-than-four-decade career. Her works have been exhibited in Finland and Sweden, as well as many other European cities and the United States. Her art is currently on display in numerous public spaces in both Sweden and Finland. Her latest public work, in Finland, is Underground Summer Meadow (2017), which can be seen at the Niittykumpu metro station in Espoo. What is so fascinating and impressive about Rantanen’s practice is her ability to create new variations and meanings within strict geometric expression. An open-minded attitude towards ornamental and decorative features has freed Rantanen from the restrains of concretism, and yet it is concretism that provides the art historical framework for her paintings.

When Mari Rantanen began her career as an artist in the 1980s, the Finnish art scene was very territorial. The bold colours and combinations of geometric shapes that she used, as well as her uninhibited use of the brush, were at odds with the purity of masculine concretism. A post-modern and more liberal concept of art was emerging, and female artists played a critical role in the formation of this new, freer form of expression. Feminism has indeed been a driving force for Mari Rantanen. While living in New York City in the 1980s, Rantanen became acquainted with many contemporary female artists and the pattern painting style they developed and which was influenced by the ornamental patterns of traditional crafts, as well as oriental art. The time she spent in New York in the 1980s and 1990s represented a formative period in her career, during which her personal style was strengthened by the legacy of American and European abstract art. She has been influenced by artists such as Bridget Riley, Frank Stella and Brice Marden. Rantanen left the United States in 1998 when she was offered a post as a professor at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, the city in which she still resides following a ten-year period of teaching.

Rantanen has also been inspired by other countries and visual traditions. Prominent places in Mari Rantanen’s life include Chiang Mai in Thailand, Delhi, Jaipur, Agra and Varanasi in India, Mexico City, Tokyo as well as Paris and Rome. The history of Western art, especially Renaissance and Baroque art, has also had a great influence on her expression. Patterns found in mosaic floors, vertical stripes on windows, underground maps and sunsets have all inspired her paintings. The visual is often also mixed with the verbal. The titles of her works, series and exhibitions are an integral part of her art. The names given to series of works are deliciously thought-provoking. They guide viewers’ interpretations and hint at the personal motivation behind each exhibition and artwork. Also in Galleria Heino’s exhibition, names play a significant role. The exhibition includes works from the series Good Vibrations (2022), Remake the world (2021), All cats have tales (2024), As above so below (2024) and Leap of faith (2024).

In addition to paintings, Galleria Heino’s exhibition also features monotypes (the All Cats have tales -series), an artform which Rantanen describes as a marriage between painting and printmaking. The series of monotypes was made using the serigraphy process in spring 2024. Each work is unique, although the works share common elements. Monotyping is a technique that creates surprises, as paper absorbs colours in a different way to canvas and the colours show through one another. Monotyping has given Rantanen a new kind of freedom and allows her to experiment.

Rantanen uses acrylic techniques in her paintings, but by using pigments she creates a surface that looks alive rather than plasticky. Pigment is like skin. The surface of such paintings can be soft and velvety, or even metallic, creating senses of softness and warmth. The paintings are very much connected to life, in terms of both technique and subject, giving viewers a sense of the places, people and experiences that have influenced the artist. Joy and feelings of happiness, positivity and optimism, as well as occasional moments of anxiety and frustration at society are all present in Mari Rantanen’s multi-faceted art.

Marja Sakari, PhD