Now

On the Other Side of the Shore

“My paintings are a love affair with life.”

“Each one is imbued with the fire of an enamoured heart. Ravens forage the fields, the sea meets the land, small boats bob upon the waves, bowls overflow with fruit, trees reach for the sky, roses bloom in gardens tended and untended, blustery winds blow, sometimes cold, sometimes hot. Mountains beckon to be climbed. Angels offer comfort and guidance, tears fill the sea, hearts beat in unison, and, in the midst of it all, there is great peace. Paradise could be here – today and now.”

Vertical elements converge with the horizon in Nanna Susi’s latest paintings.
“The horizon is the longest bridge in the world. It connects us all. A bridge is an idea at which we arrive by tracing the path of our eyes. Where the earth and sky diverge, we become one with the horizon, crossing over forever to the other side of the shore.”

“Each individual is the epicentre of their life. We are, in a sense, shackled by gravity, but all around us is the horizon. The horizon is the heart’s desire. We should always look as far as the eye can see. Between us and the horizon, there is consciousness – thoughts, ideas, the past and the future. Pain and happiness. And paintings.”

Nanna Susi’s upcoming exhibition On the Other Side of the Shore presents roughly forty paintings, many of which are previously unseen works from 2024-2025. Part of the show is a retrospective, marking a historic closure, as Susi was originally supposed to hold a retrospective at Meilahti Manor in 2012, but the museum closed its doors and Susi instead premiered her new paintings from 2012-2013 in a replacement show at HAM Helsinki Art Museum.

“This is a familiar and beloved space, definitely the most beautiful exhibition space in Helsinki. I am also delighted to have this opportunity to present my paintings alongside photographs by Pekka Ala-Pietilä. He has made career as a business manager in technology companies, but Pekka’s photographs have also won awards in international competitions. Pekka and I both come from Asikkala, We share a mutual immersion in wonder. Both of us embrace far-sighted vision and a thematic preoccupation with time, eternity, existence, will, limits, and beauty. I believe creativity is ultimately about making thoughts and feelings visible.”

Read more:

See the presentation of the exhibition! (in Finnish)

www.pekka-ala-pietila.photography
www.meilahdenkartano.fi
www.nannasusi.fi

BAW – Bracciano Art Week
14.-18.5.2025

Contemporary Bloom

Wonderful Life!
25.10.–17.11.2024

Wonderful Life!

“You can set an alarm clock for happiness,” says artist Nanna Susi. “A wonderful life is something you choose. It is a powerful holistic experience and attitude that cannot exist without its opposite – anguish and tortured self-questioning. It is the outcome of everyday choices.”

The artist describes herself as having taken her soul on holiday in her latest paintings. By painting, she strove to detach herself from stressful world events, gloomy headlines, normative conventions and the limiting laws, assumptions and resentments of everyday life.

“I decided to take myself on holiday – I simply painted myself away. The world is an exhausting place in which to feel and exist at the moment. I rebelled against it. I wanted to wake up and reconnect with my soul. The phrase ‘living a wonderful life’ often conveys the wrong idea. Life is basically wonderful for anyone willing to appreciate it.”

Susi painted places where it is good to be. Her paintings as intended to remind people of the joy and necessity of seeking and discovering. They show that the mind is inherently free. “Through this exhibition, I have chosen to live a wonderful life,” writes Susi in her exhibition text. “My paintings are the balancing counterforce of the anguish of creation. This, in fact, is the whole miracle of painting. Opposites give birth to each other.”

“I have chosen the path of Chagall in my art. It is a path of optimism and faith in happiness. There can never be too much love in the world. Choosing a wonderful life is everyone’s inalienable right.”

All The Colours in The World – Toutes les couleurs du monde

Production: Nanna Susi Oy, 2024
Filming: Pihla Pasanen
Editing: Pihla Pasanen, Nanna Susi
Production Coordination: Kirsi Kiljunen
Music: Flute Peace – Rob Crozier Music, Walking By Champs Elysees – BrooklynBrothers, When You Come To Me – DHDMusic
Photos: Teoskuvat – Jussi Tiainen, henkilökuva – Mojo Erämetsä, Pariisin-kuvat – Nanna Susi
The Curator of the Exhibition: Krista Mikkola
Thanks: Raffaello De Angelis, The Finnish Institute in France

The Finnish Institute in France has chosen ‘Together’ as its Olympic theme for summer 2024.

The Olympic Games bring people together. Competing is our way of facing and pushing our limits. In a way, those limits – be they psychological or physical – are the line between us and the rest of the world. And the most wondrous thing about that line, besides being an interface that brings people together, is that it never stops moving. Magenta Lifeline.
By pushing our limits, we build faith in ourselves. What is impossible today might be possible tomorrow.

In a way, paintings are the opposite of movement, because a painting captures a still moment in time. But our mind and eyes still perceive movement in paintings.
The movement is added by our imagination. A Day Coloured by Imagination.

My guiding idea is that my paintings will together form a large, wall-sized installation reflecting the theme of togetherness. Together, as an ensemble, they are strong. But togetherness also entails sensitivity.

I have completed six oil paintings to be displayed from floor to ceiling on three floors of the institute’s main hall.

Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece, is the home of the gods. Olympia, in turn, is a woman’s name.
Olympus is the mythic cradle where it all began and the first ancient Olympiad was held in honour of Zeus hundreds of years before the Common Era.
Zeus rules over all that is on high. Morning Dew Blue.

I, too, wanted my installation to reach the ultimate heights and stretch all the way to the ceiling.

FIRE

I am warmed by the Olympic tradition and the way the Olympic flame is ignited by the rays of the sun on the altar of Hera in Olympia and carried in a torch relay to the opening ceremony of the games. Fire symbolizes power and energy. Fire ignites us and makes us brave. It spurs us to surpass ourselves and believe in our dreams. It warms the soul. Fire Carrier’s Yellow.
I have included fire symbolism in two of the paintings in my collage. One depicts a woman with a flame rising from her upturned palms. The other portrays a dancing couple whose locked hands
ignite a blaze. Dancing Red.
The sun’s rays glow warmly in all my colourful paintings. Let there be light!

COLOUR

‘Together’ is a theme that cannot be expressed in only one colour. I wanted to be embraced and inspired by a vast spectrum of colours. The soul of the world is an ever-moving entity that encompasses an endless array of different beings, all woven together as one. Isn’t this a wondrous thought? Green in the Garden of Beauty.
Symbolically, being together is about inclusivity and embracing all the world’s colours, all the world’s dreams and all the world’s continents. It’s about marvelling at the wonders of the universe together. The Olympics belong to everyone. We all act, communicate and love together. Even when we are alone, we are still always together.

​Our days, thoughts and feelings come in many different colours, but all the myriad hues of our existence blend together, and it is this mix of many colours that ignites us, shapes us and offers us inspiration.
The Olympic rings are blue, black, red, yellow and green against a white background. Black and white are not ‘colours’, but the other hues in the Olympic symbol are primary colours.
I believe everything has a place in life. Life is not black and white, as the Olympic symbol shows us with its inclusion of many colours.
But we still need black and white, along with the primary colours, to create “all the colours in the world”.

PARIS AND SUMMER

The swirling gowns in my paintings are a nod to the fashion Mecca of Paris, while the city’s aesthetic ecstasy finds expression in lavish bouquets bursting with colour.
The roundness of the radiant apples and peaches evokes the Olympic rings, if not the very perfection of the universe.

We are together. We are united by earth, water, fire, air, spirit and all the colours in the world, by the gently flowing Emerald Green Seine.
The softly shimmering lime-rich soil of Paris lends the city its distinctive powdery hues of apricot and coffee cream.
The Mona Lisa gives us a wink. She is already a winner.
But the lesson we must learn is that winning or losing is beside the point. Only learning matters, and our coexistence here and now. Fair play and working together.
And the one thing we must learn is to love. Love Is Moving in the City. Just ask the Eiffel Tower.

The curator of the exhibition is Krista Mikkola.

More information on the website of The Finnish Institute in France:

All the Colours of the World (in English)

Ensemble! All Colours Ensemble (in English)

The Garden Enchantment

Nanna Susi & Art and Cultural History from the Gardens

18.5.-13.10.2024
Wed–Sun klo 12–17

Herajärventie 2, Saarijärvi
Finland

Nanna Susi ranks among the leading Finnish painters of our time. The Vääksy-born artist first achieved public renown when she was chosen as Finland’s Young Artist of the Year in 2000. Her paintings are colourful, expressive, impassioned, and often monumental in scale. Nanna divides her time between Rome and Helsinki. The Garden Enchantment exhibition features a selection of her paintings from 2016-2024.

I am the daughter of a florist. I have been de-thorning roses and arranging bouquets since I was twelve years old. Flowers and gardens have always been present in my paintings. As an isolated motif, a garden is like the human mind. It can be carefully designed or wild. Colourful or restrained. Neglected or loved. Geometrical or shapeless. I see the idea of a ‘garden’ as the heart of abstract art. It is where we bit the apple. It is a place of choices, pleasures, and the wonders of growth. It is a place of power – of life, death and a constant cycle of rebirth. We are forever servants of the garden. Gardens love our admiration, wonder, and enchantment. Yesterday I noticed that my clivia is finally blooming again. What joy! Flowers and gardens brighten our minds because they grow and bloom with light.

Nanna Susi
Painter

nanna susi studio

25.10.-10.11.2024
Fleminginkatu 6, Helsinki