Hain muutaman kehystyksen Art Pispalasta, ja aina siellä näkee ja kuulee jotain.
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When you visiting Art Pispala framing shop/gallery, you always notice something interesting or striking at that moment, because the walls are full of paintings. Now I admired the pastels of Olli Marttila (b. 1948) from Orivesi. He worked as a teacher at the Orivesi College for a long time and makes his own pastel colors. The pictures have a primitive atmosphere, people, houses, nature.
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After the January 2025 Naive art exhibition, I still have a few of my linocuts left at Art Pispala. In my usual place on the narrow wall next to the door are four Pispala house pictures, including the Ylä-Voima house and the Lauri Viita museum. Elsewhere in the gallery, there is still a rather large Kesä jatkuu. Kesä / Summer continues. Summer linocut. Sesse framed a version of this two-part linocut so that the parts are not attached to each other but separate. Those versions look surprisingly different.
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You might be surprised at Art Pispala's January 2025 naive art exhibition. The exhibition includes quite a lot of naive art that the gallerist Petri Nieminen has acquired for his collections over the years (or decades). This image of a woman with a scarf was startling among all the colorful, humorous and joyful art. The artist is Jorma Turtiainen, unknown to me, perhaps not quite the mainstream of naive art. My camera also caught Martti Lehto's cat painting and Minna Lehväslaiho's birds on a tree. Terho Peltoniemi's paintings based on folklore are said to be his last - he is planning to change his style, we'll see what comes next.
Pälkäneen Ihmissusi-Lehikoinen |
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Probably the most beloved naive artist in Finland is Martti "Huuhaa" Innanen (1931-2014). He probably actually created the popularity of Finnish naive art in the Naivists at Iittala exhibitions starting in the 1970s. The paintings are humorous and their humorous long titles have also played a large part in the popularity of the works. The pictures show slightly silly peasants, werewolves, and the Finnish landscape with its meadows and forests glows in the background. Innanen was active, also a journalist, writer and musician. Three works by Martti Innanen can be seen in Art Pispala's January 2025 naive exhibition. These are not for sale, because nowadays whoever has Innanen also keeps his/her Innanen. A fairly new biography of Innanen is on sale.
| Etelä-Pohjalainen kosinta: "Äitee käski mun kysyy notta, tuukko sää mulle akaks?" |
| Pispalan pelimanni |
| Pispalan pelimannin talo nykyisin |
jopa yksi Nikolai Lehdon graafinen työ/ even one graphic work by Nikolai Lehto |
Kikka Nyrén (s. 1951) on varmaan yksi suomalaisen naivismin tunnetuimmista naistaiteilijoista, tunnettu myös ulkomaisissa näyttelyissä. Kikka Nyrén on Naivistit Iittalassa .näyttelyissä eniten seuraamiani taiteilijoita, jonka kissamaalausten perusteella uskalsin joskus itsekin kokeilla kissa-aiheita. Kikka Nyrénin tauluissa on iloa, hilpeytta, positiivisuutta, kirkkaita värejä ja isommissa sommitelmissa myös hurja määrä ykstyiskohtia. Koristeellisuudessa näkyy hänen alkuperäinen ammattinsa kuvittajana. Pari Kikka Nyrénin maalausta löytyy myös Art Pispalan tammikuun 2025 naivistinäyttelystä.
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Kikka Nyrén (b. 1951) is probably one of the most famous female artists of Finnish Naive art, also known in foreign exhibitions. Kikka Nyrén is one of the artists I followed the most in the Naivists at Iittala exhibitions, and based on her cat paintings, I sometimes dared to try cat themes myself. Kikka Nyrén's paintings have joy, hilarity, positivity, bright colors and in larger compositions also a huge amount of detail. Her original profession as an illustrator is visible in the decoration. A couple of Kikka Nyrén's paintings can also be found in the January 2025 Naive art exhibition at Art Pispala.
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Annukka Grönlund's (b. 1941) paintings often feature people with round faces who look a little sad or smiling. These characters can also be recognized by their large noses. The colors are rich and delicious, and the atmosphere is somehow relaxed or calm. Grönlund's circus-themed, often larger-sized paintings are a genre all their own. They feature a sad clown, angels, lions and glowing colors. You can also see a few classic naive works by Annukka Grönlund at Art Pispala's January 2025 naive art exhibition.
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In the paintings of Raijä Männistö-Koski (b. 1948), women and girls have red cheeks. The paintings do not have a clear time frame, they can depict the world now or decades ago at Art Pispala´s Naive art exhibition in January 2025. However, something similar to the rural romanticism found in the paintings of, for example, Reijo Kivijärvi is occasionally present. A man holds an umbrella in heavy rain with a humble look in his eyes. White clouds sail across the sky as the woman leans on the handle of a shovel. And the chickens follow the woman who is handing them grains and whose skirt also has a chicken pattern. The atmosphere is a bit mischievous.