GALERIE FORSBLOM - Helsinki

[PARA] Marika Mäkelä’s new paintings take us on a journey to places both familiar and unknown. Often, it is precisely the unknown that reveals the familiar in a new light. This exhibition is a synthesis of her experiences: influences gathered from many places merge into worlds of their own. Disparate realities intersect in her work – her paintings are like cultural melting pots, where movement and insight are distilled as images. [PARA] Mäkelä has spent long periods in Spain and Morocco, and the influence of these cultures is deeply embedded in her art. Her travels have left visible traces: certain shapes, colors, and qualities of light have remained with her. Spain, for instance, has inspired her interest in angular forms, in the way shapes extend beyond the canvas, and in the contrasts and encounters between materials. [PARA] Yet two elements always lie at the heart of her paintings: light and form – their observation and dissection. Her new works reveal a recent fascination with the play of light on sand. They reflect the mutable nature of sand in shifting contexts, from desert expanses to swirling storms. Sand-inspired clusters of form and thought have also found their way into her compositions. A figurative element emerges too, articulating rhythm and carrying the narrative forward. This narrativity grows out of experiences that entwine thoughts, landscapes, places, and journeys – finally crystallizing in Mäkelä’s mind in the form of a painting. [PARA] Marika Mäkelä (b. 1947) is one of Finland’s most eminent painters. In a career spanning six decades, she has received many of the nation’s highest artistic honors, including the State Prize, the Pro Finlandia Medal, and the title of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland. In 2024, the President of the Republic of Finland awarded her the honorary title of professor. Mäkelä’s works are represented in major international museums, including Moderna Museet in Stockholm, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, and Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki.

Press Release Arcangelo’s art springs from a profound connection to both landscape and humanity. It emerges from a unique inner geography that transfigures the landscapes of southern Italy and Africa through memory, encounter, and embodiment. For him, Irpinia, Sannio, and the Apennines are not simply places – they are richly imbued with flesh, roots, silence, and living history. His paintings do not merely depict; they awaken, they call. Each work is a declaration of its existence. Arcangelo’s expression is direct and disarming. He works in mixed media, incorporating earth, wood ash, and pigments. His materials and colors embody time and touch, telling their own stories. Each color speaks with its own voice, resonating with meaning. Nature is an enduring source of inspiration, with flowers emerging as central symbols. More than decorative motifs, they are manifestations of the soul. Each flower embodies a form of quiet resistance, offering itself as a gentle gesture to the world. Born in 1956, Arcangelo Esposito – known simply as Arcangelo – is an Italian painter and sculptor. He lives and works in Milan and San Nazzaro in Irpinia, and teaches painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and began his international career in Germany and Switzerland exhibiting at leading galleries such as Tanit, Munich and Buchmann, Basel. He participated in the XI and XII Rome Quadriennale (1986, 1996) and has since exhibited widely in Europe and Asia, and his works are represented in numerous public and private collections. His major exhibitions include PAC – Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Galleria Civica in Modena and Trento, Musée d’Art Moderne in Toulouse, the MAGA Museum in Gallarate, as well as solo shows in Galerie Mazarine Variations, Paris, Galleria Marco Rossi, Milan, Turin and Verona, Fondazione Il Volume, Roma, In 2019, he presented a large-scale exhibition at MAGA and Milan Malpensa International Airport.

[PARA] Arno Westerberg’s new exhibition explores themes of seeing and disappearing. His paintings unfold within a sharply defined moment, delving into the gaze – what we see and, above all, how we see. In his works, “ways of seeing” refers not to interpretation, but to the physical act of perception itself. The gaze is always in forever motion: roaming, sharpening. The exhibition title, Soft Eyes, is borrowed from equestrian sports, describing a peripheral gaze – broad, unfocused, yet acutely aware of its surroundings. “Soft eyes” can also suggest an emotional or infatuated look, a softened and tender way of seeing. [PARA] Westerberg’s painting style is minimal and gently direct, carrying an honest, incisive narrative. In his pictures, narrative is both present and absent – it hovers at the edges of the work, breathing somewhere beyond the frame. This tension lies at the heart of his practice: what is left unsaid or unseen often carries as much weight as what is revealed. [PARA] Although Westerberg’s subjects are drawn from everyday life, his works at times enter into dialogue with art history. For instance, Sofianlehto draws inspiration from a detail of Gunnar Finne’s Fact and Fable (1898), the monument to Zacharias Topelius in Helsinki’s Esplanade Park. [PARA] Born in 1998, Westerberg graduated with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from the University of the Arts Utrecht in 2022 and completed a master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki in 2024. He has exhibited widely in Finland and internationally. His first solo shows were held in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and he has since participated in group exhibitions at venues including Collectie De Groen, the Academy of Fine Arts Master’s Degree Show in Helsinki, and Billytown in The Hague.