I breathe. In, out.

I close my eyes and am surrounded by dark water. The starless sky rises above me and I float in darkness. The roar of the rolling sea in my ears, I drift with the movement of the water without my own will. Flashes of what could have been, of what never was and never will, cut through my dark reality. Where there once was a dim glow, there is now an impenetrable, unrecognizable mass. The mass hovers beside me, making a strangely quiet roaring growl, struggling to death before sinking into the black water. I touch it, try to take a handful, it evades my fingers and breaks into wispy strands.

I breathe. In, out. The darkness continues endlessly, I rest.

The textile works in the exhibition have been created over the past few years. The technique I use in my works is based on pleating and attaching fabric using various methods to build three-dimensional shapes. I most often shape my works from a single piece of fabric using folds and pleats. The technique requires a lot of working on the fabric’s terms and working with various support structures. In my works, I approach fabric as if it were skin that lives on its wearer. It is not perfect, it stretches, shrinks, breaks. It requires tenderness to flourish, but it often receives rough handling, ruthlessness and indifference.

Thematically, the works are situated in a so-called no-man’s land: in stagnant empty moments, which can be fleeting, like the blink of an eye, or on the other hand, in a vaguely surging and seemingly endless, immense darkness. In spaces and situations where one can only do one’s best, waiting for some kind of undefined movement to show a new path, direction or possibility.

Suvi Härkönen is a sculptor and installation artist who graduated as a visual artist from the Art Institute of Lahti University of Applied Sciences in 2011 and a Master of Arts from the Visual Culture program at Aalto University in 2014. In her works, she explores the concept of liminality and its relationship to art. The works often convey a sense of inevitable change, forming a kind of in-between space, a stage for momentary stasis.

Härkönen has held several solo exhibitions over the years, including at Galleria Katariina (2022), Galleria Huuto (2020), Porvoo Art Hall (2018), Fotogalleria Hippolyte (2017) and GalleriaKONE (2015). He lives and works in Porvoo and is a member of the Finnish Sculptors’ Association.

The work has been supported by the Visual Arts Promotion Center VISEK.

More Info:
www.suviharkonen.fi