Current

2019

“I am going to interview practitioners and professionals of a variety of occupations. I am interested in exploring the ways they perceive the future, and whether they feel an influence of the Spiritualist movement in their lives. The idea of how we sometimes need to ask questions that may not have answers fascinates me. On the basis of these interviews I will create a series of spatial paintings through which the audience can “look into the future”. “

Vuorenmaa is fascinated by the different sides of human behavior. She focuses on contrasting everyday encounters between people; exploring personal experiences of separation as well as blending in. In recent years her artistic work has focused on exploring various depictions of occupations.

The Mänttä Art Festival is the largest summer exhibition of Finnish contemporary art. Its curator (this year Marja Helander) is selected annually. The award-winning Mänttä Art Festival is a destination highly regarded by art professionals and much loved by the general public. Permanent exhibition space is located in Pekilo, in the centre of Mänttä. The theme of the XXIV Art Festival is ”The Human Era”. The exhibition poses the question: What happens when humans control the land and natural resources? Mänttä Art Festival from June 16 to September 1, 2019 in Mänttä-Vilppula, Finland.

My solo exhibition Roses, Black birds and Witches was held at the Gallery Helsinki Contemporary from 11.1. to 3.2.2019.

Camilla Vuorenmaa’s exhibition Roses, Black Birds and Witches explores superstitions and urban legends. The subjects of the works are witches, vampires and wizards. Vuorenmaa collected background materials in Scotland when she was living there in 2018 and has, for instance, read accounts of the history of witches and of children driven to the verge of mass hysteria. Around this same time, witches were coming up in the media and literature more frequently than before. Vuorenmaa is interested in the need people have to find a common enemy, and via which we seek to protect ourselves against phenomena that we do not understand. She, nevertheless, treats her themes with a certain humour and the aesthetic of her works contains references to 1990s horror films. We are on the boundary between good taste and the macabre.

2018

UPSIDE DOWNand other works of art from the Saastamoinen Foundation Collection

21 September 2018 – 3 February 2019

The art collection of the Saastamoinen Foundation has evolved from the home collection of the Saastamoinen family of industrialists of Kuopio into one of Finland’s leading art collections. The Foundation, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, relocated its art collection in EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art in 1999. The present exhibition presents the collection’s latest works of contemporary art, a consistent focus of the Foundation’s acquisitions in recent decades. Finnish artists featured in the exhibition include Jenni Eskola, Markus Rissanen, Jani Leinonen, Maiju Salmenkivi and Camilla Vuorenmaa. Foreign artists with works in the collection include Eggert Pétursson of Iceland, Chantal Joffe of the United Kingdom, and the Swedish artists Ernst Billgren and Roland Persson.

I have chosen artists whose works have an emotional effect on me. It felt natural to invite colleagues whose working methods I was familiar with after countless discussions and studio visits over the years. This is about immersion, not about moving sideways.

Instead of a specific theme, the framework for the exhibition is formed by the intuitive way of working, which combines the artists and artworks. In the core of the exhibition is the gaze that each of the artists casts upon the world surrounding them. What connects them all is their way of processing gathered perceptions and experiences at the studio, in painting as well as through material experiments.

At the studio, a certain private experience is brought to a more common level, for others to experience. The gaze is filtered upon the artworks through the viewer’s own experiences and renders the works critically reflective. Foremost, and highlighting: I have chosen artists for the exhibition, whose works touch me emotionally. -Hannaleena Heiska