Gaa is delighted to present Beyond Matter, a group exhibition of Finnish artists centered around the themes of nature and mysticism, exploring the intersection of material transformation, natural phenomena, and the unseen spiritual dimensions embedded in physical form. Here the boundaries between the material and immaterial dissolve. Including the work of Taru Happonen, Johanna Härkönen, Emma Jääskeläinen, Eeva Lietonen, Frans Nybacka, Kerttu Saali, Teemu Salonen, and Eetu Sihvonen, Beyond Matter seeks to reveal nature as both presence and process — a space where matter carries memory and spirit.
Within the Kalevala (the Finnish national myth) the element of the sampo bears a trivalent meaning. A pillar to the cosmos, an ascending anchor of heaven’s vault; a wellspring from which boundless creations flow; or perhaps, most widely-recounted, a mill crafted by Ilmarinen, the god of air and sky, its three sides alchemizing salt, grain, and wealth from particles of nothingness.
Bestowing prosperity to any in its possession, legend states this amorphous object was stolen from its mountainous stronghold, only to be broken and lost to the sea. Its remnants washed ashore, interspersed in the soil, scattered and fecund, yielding to the natural lushness of the land’s forests and fields. Coveted, imbued with mystical faculties, the sampo was so powerful that even when broken, its shards still provided, reaped and sowed. Sought by all, within all, but never found — a metaphor for desire’s impetus: generative of output, evasive of definition, and ultimately, beyond matter.
These remnants of the sampo, their shapeshifting form and abundance so integral to Finnish mythology, find themselves here within the artistic medium. On Kerttu Saali’s canvases, color catapults as an energetic field, exalting the otherworldly within earthen phenomena. At other times the palette emerges as subdued hues, as within Eeva Lietonen’s paintings that rest on the brink of figuration and abstraction, wavering allusions to the domestic and the divine. Frans Nybacka transforms mundane likeness into worlds unmanifested, existing only at imagination’s edge. A familiar landscape belies an ominous, yet ethereal atmosphere. Substances of earth and of man — sanded wood, pulverized metal, powdered marble and glass — become dystopically surreal; these are Taru Happonen’s configurations on linen that yield a codified, pliant corporeality. Materiality becomes a vibrant conduit for the intangible, rather than a foundation or container.
Beyond Matter unfolds as both invocation and inquiry — a contemplation of how the physical might hold the metaphysical and how nature offers a mirror for the unseen. Symbols are built to be shattered — a promise of another realm, a promise disintegrating upon attainment. In its wake, from the invisible fragments, something ineffable and unassuming emerges, returning anew, again and again.
Text by Sabrina Tamar.
Beyond Matter is organized in collaboration with The Finnish Cultural Institute in New York and the Consulate General of Finland in New York through their partnership with the New Art Dealers Alliance. This collaboration is made possible with additional funding from Jane and Aatos Erkko Foundation, Finlandia Foundation National, and The Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland.
Taru Happonen (b. 1989, Lahti, Finland) is a Helsinki-based visual artist working with painting, drawing, and sculpture. Influenced by natural sciences and science fiction, her work often incorporates recurring surfaces and structures found in nature. Different layers have been peeled into view. She explores a complex, ever-changing world from both cosmic and microscopic perspectives, employing a diverse range of materials. Organic and synthetic elements are intricately intertwined. Her artworks emphasize the significance of wonder, portraying the world as both intricate and in constant flux. The interplay of surfaces, forms, and materials in her pieces creates connections, highlighting the unity of life, continuity, and the deep layers of time.
She earned a Master’s degree in 2023 from the Academy of Fine Arts at the University of the Arts Helsinki. Her works are included in the collections of Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, HAM Helsinki Art Museum, the Finnish State Art Deposit Collection, and the HUS Art Collection.
Johanna Härkönen (b. 1985, Kajaani, Finland) is a New York–based artist. She paints with wax and technology, using software and printers as brushes and pigments to blur the line between abstraction and figuration. Härkönen’s approach is associative and experimental, allowing digital and analog materials, the grotesque, and the spiritual to unfold side by side. Digital fragments encased in beeswax resemble archived fossils of our technological present, glowing like screens yet summoning the sacredness of ritual objects and altars from another time. Guided by accident and intuition, her works meditate on transformation and the fragile permanence of memory, drawing viewers into a realm where the raw and the surreal converge.
Emma Jääskeläinen (b. 1988, Espoo) is an artist living and working in Espoo, Finland. She received her MFA from the Academy of the Arts in Helsinki 2018. Jääskeläinen works with sculpture, video, and sound. Her figurative, comical bodies made of stone and bronze are hommages to her dear one’s, depicting their calloused fingers, ageing bodies, and garlicky breaths. The roughly carved surfaces are evidence of long conversations. Soft and smooth surfaces imply a certain slowing down, care and respect for materials.
Traditional, meditative methods of making are spiced up with intuitive choices and anecdotes. Stone and metal bodies are celebrated with non-permanent vibrant layers made up of ready-mades and lighter materials such as clothing, seashells, chewing gums and woolen spikes. Fragile layers and pop-cultural references in seemingly permanent structures suggest that things are always on a move and changing.
Eeva Lietonen (b. 1987, Lahti, Finland) is a Helsinki based artist. She is working in the expanded field of painting, primarily using self-made oil paints, fresco technique and metalcrafts. At the heart of her material-drivel practice is the application of traditionally perceived techniques in contemporary art. Her artistic work stems from a need and desire to wonder about, explore, and imagine various forms and connections of existence. An attitude aimed at understanding is about opening up to things rather than seeking to control them.
Frans Nybacka’s (b. 1993, Kangasala, Finland) practice centers on worldbuilding through painting. His heavily serial work combines poetic visual storytelling and imaginative juxtapositions that create a sense of mystery and layered complexity. In recent years, he has explored a morally and environmentally deteriorating world through the lens of childlike innocence, a perspective that lends even the heaviest themes a sense of gentleness and empathy.
Nybacka repurposes overlooked and found imagery by personifying places, objects, and environments to reveal their emotional and magical presence. His exhibitions often resemble loose storyboards or stills from imagined video games, inviting viewers to construct their own narratives within the world he presents. The feverishly scraped, yet soft surfaces and faded palette are as characteristic as his compositions, that are purposefully flat in nature but contain multiple points of interest and pathways to dive into. Balancing chaos and ethereality, his paintings evoke a quiet melancholy, a sense of warm stillness, wistful, yet hopeful.
For Kerttu Saali (b. 1994, Helsinki, Finland), the most important thing about painting is freedom: She nearly always paints without a plan or goal. Focal to her process are the basic elements of painting: color, light, and form. She is influenced conceptually and stylistically by earlier painters, such as the Impressionists, and their treatment of light. Her works always capture something beyond words’ reach, and the unconscious side of artwork has fascinated Saali ever since she began painting. Through her paintings, she hints at the existence of something ineffable, and in doing so, she reveals how paintings speak their unique language. Her carved picture frames are like extensions of her paintings, which appear to spill outside the boundaries of the linen canvas. Saali is interested in how oil painting and wood communicate as intertwined. Instead of marginalizing the frame as secondary to the painting, Saali makes it a visible and equal part of a larger artistic entity.
Kerttu Saali graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2023. She has participated in many group exhibitions, including Young Artists 2023 at Kunsthalle Helsinki. Her work is found in numerous private collections and the public collections of the Saastamoinen Foundation, the City of Tampere, and the Permanent Representation of Finland to the EU in Brussels.
Finnish designer Teemu Salonen’s (b. 1976, Finland) iconoclastic work is an active renunciation of the simple lines and unadorned nature pervasive in the Scandinavian design that surrounds him. Placing form over function, he sees his studio practice as both experimentation and play, where a variety of materials and techniques can be merged to create unique objects of sculptural design.
For Salonen, making things by hand is an essential part of his identity as a designer. His years of experience as a curator in visual arts, coupled with degrees in carpentry and craft design, have developed into a singular perspective that marries elements of both classical and kitsch design. The sophisticated is skillfully laced with ostentatious elements of flourish, effortlessly rolled into one asymmetrical package.
Eetu Sihvonen (b. 1994, Kotka, Finland) lives and works in Helsinki. They often work with traditional materials such as wood and metal, as well as 3D modeling and animation. Sihvonen merges these processes into installations and singular works, which are informed by traditional handicraft techniques, storytelling, and the world of role-playing games. Their works have been exhibited in solo/two person exhibitons at Gaa, New York, NY; Temnikova & Kasela, Tallinn, Estonia; Titanik, Turku, Finland; and, Okasenkatu 11, Helsinki, Finland. Sihvonen’s work has been featured in group exhibitions at the Community Centre, Paris, France; Holešovická Šachta, Prague, Czech Republic; Pitted Dates, Helsinki, Finland; and Ruis, Nijmegen, Netherlands. Their work is featured in the collection of the Finnish Art Society.
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