Taidemaalariliitto

“A few years ago, I looked at bright pale potato flowers in the delicate twilight of a summer evening and thought that they are absolutely like stars. The five-lobed flower shape appeared in my paintings and remained varied there. Obviously, it can be seen looking into the starry sky – the extreme edge of human perception – but also into the processes of the earth, into the space of the earth. “

Linda Roschier’s ancestor, Valentin Rossier, a soldier returning from the war, arrived in Finland 300 years ago. By chance, also potatoes arrived in Finland with the soldiers returning from the war. This folksy vegetable appears sympathetic and relatable but on the other hand, it is a powerful symbol that takes thoughts to emigration, the years of famine, and the food that everyone loves in Finland. The realization of this geographical synchronicity of the ancestor and the potato led Roschier to start using potato as part of her art.

DAWN is an installation consisting of oil paintings, potatoes, and three-dimensional elements. The exhibition is a nuanced display of Roschier – an entity that focuses on Roschier’s fears, hopes, and social threats through the means of painting and installation.

The Painter’s Bed in the center of the gallery invites the viewer to look at the flowing passage of time from the perspective of rest and dreaming.

In Roschier’s multi-hued paintings, you can recognize fragments from different times and places. The color surfaces and the forms of the paintings are dreamlike- like warm memories that you want to return to again and again. They have a wistfulness but intensity, a sense of purpose that guides the viewer’s train of thought in subtle ways.

As humanity walks its familiar paths, surfaces, and earth are shaped over time, the stars continue to twinkle in the sky and the potato continues to grow. But is a person an empty canvas on which the same picture is drawn over and over again?

Milja-Liina Moilanen

Linda Roschier (b.1979) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts with a Master of Fine Arts in 2020. She has most recently presented her works at Helsinki Contemporary in the group exhibition Modern Love. She has had solo exhibitions for example in Gallery Huuto, and Exhibition Laboratory Project Room. Linda Roschier is one of the artists of Finnish Painters project.

The exhibition’s seed potatoes will be donated to exhibition visitors to be cultivated during the last weekend of the exhibition.

Linda_Roschier_CV_English

Thank you: Arts Promotion Centre Finland and Kansan Sivistysrahasto