ARS Kallavesi

2025

31.1.–31.8. 2025

ON WATER is a contemporary art exhibition in which ten artists explore the theme of water from different perspectives. The works explore the forms, reflections, paths, and meanings of water. Water is the subject or manifestation of the subject in the works, a metaphor, an ecological niche. The flow of water is the flow of life, for without water, there is no life. 

The exhibition is curated by filmmaker and visual artist Matleena Jänis. It is produced by the artist association Marginaali ry, in cooperation with the city of Kuopio and Scandic Kuopio. The exhibition is part of the official programme for the Kuopio 250 celebration. 

The exhibition is open in the public areas of the hotel. 

Taiteilijat

Kati Immonen: A Wonderful Night from the series Bottled

Kati Immonen

Kati Immonen is reinventing watercolour painting as a medium for contemporary art. Immonen recognizes the cultural baggage carried by her medium, the watercolour, as being something light, effortless, and superficial, and turns this to her own benefit. The relationship between humans, the built environment, and nature has long interested the artist. Kati Immonen lives in Turku, Finland, and has exhibited widely, both in Finland and abroad. Her works are represented in prominent Finnish public collections and in the Nordic Watercolour Museum in Sweden. She has also worked on several public artworks around Finland and created illustrations and cover images for numerous publications.

www.katiimmonen.com

Matleena Jänis: detail of the work Bird or Fish

Matleena Jänis

Matleena Jänis works as a filmmaker and photographic artist in Jyväskylä and Kuopio. She has directed, written, shot, and edited several award-winning documentary films, short films, and animated films, which have been broadcast on television and screened in numerous international film festivals since 1997. She has taken part in photography exhibitions, published two photo books, and curated art exhibitions and events. In her work, Matleena Jänis has explored subjects such as memory, cultural history, transgenerationalism, imaginary worlds, and religion. Her work has a distinctive, rich style and is filled with warm-hearted humour.

www.matleenajanis.com

Markku Kolehmainen: Morning at Maljapuro

Markku Kolehmainen

"We listen to music and look at paintings. I do not seek for or take model from outside; colour is a state of mind. The process of creating a colouristic painting is an art in itself. An artist practices his instrument daily, just like a musician. Aging has brought me to see fragility and sensitivity in my works."

Markku Kolehmainen is a Tammisaari-based painter who was born in Kuopio, Finland, and has studied at the Turku School of Drawing and Konstfack in Stockholm. He is particularly known for his large oil paintings in intense colours, often with flashes of gold and silver, as well as his portrait paintings and delicate line drawings. Markku Kolehmainen has had numerous exhibitions in Finland and abroad, and his works are in the collections of major museums, foundations, and companies, including the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, the Finnish State, the Finnish Parliament, the Amos Anderson Art Museum, the Bank of Finland, the Helsinki City Art Museum, the Kuopio, Varkaus, and Kerava Art Museums, the Saastamoinen Foundation's Art Collection Emma Espoo, the Fortum Art Foundation, the Museum of Fine Arts Eemil, and the Finnish Art Society.

www.markkukolehmainen.com

Sebastian Lindberg: Tuoni

Ulla-Mari Lindström: still image from the video work Tropical Magic

Ulla-Mari Lindström

Ulla-Mari Lindström is a Kuopio-based photography and media artist as well as a researcher of “natural art.” Lindström studied photography and painting at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and the University of Art and Design in Helsinki. Her practice has taken her to diverse environments, including the mountainous Tolima region in Colombia, where she worked at the Arcapacha residency in 2015 and 2019, and to underwater landscapes in Southeast Asia. These journeys have deepened her relationship with the fragility of ecosystems and the coexistence of species.

Lindström studies nature from an artistic perspective, and from her observations she builds imaginary hybrids and media installations. In her works, the artist combines scientific, ecological, and philosophical themes with her artistic views. The ‘Natural Art Collection’ consists of humor-tinged explorations of what kind of new and strange species might emerge if the separated branches of the living world were to merge again.

 www.ullamari.com

Minna Parkkinen: image from the series Paseo de los Tristes

Minna Parkkinen

Minna Parkkinen is a Turku-based visual artist and filmmaker working with film, photography, and three-dimensional works. She also has extensive experience working with hand-processed analogue film, which she studied in Spain and the United States. Her works deal with human emotions and the subconscious, and her films have been characterised as poetic. Minna Parkkinen has also transferred the images of the films to other materials. Her experimental films have been awarded honorary mentions and screened at dozens of international film festivals. Minna Parkkinen's artworks have not only featured in solo exhibitions but also in group exhibitions in Finland, Brazil and South Korea.

www.minnaparkkinen.fi

Kiti Saarinen

Kiti Saarinen is a Tampere-based writer, poet, and photographer focusing on haiku and haiga. She is a member of the Haiku Stories poetry and music group. Kiti writes minimalist texts for Annu Salminen's art graphics. The texts can be haiku, prose poems, or one-line monologues. Kiti Saarinen's combinations of photography and haiku poems have been published in the book Saarinen, Lehtonen, and Jaakkola: My Self-Made Wings. Haiku Stories (2022).

Annu Salminen

Annu Salminen is a visual artist from Tampere, Finland, who paints and makes graphics using different methods. Her work explores people's ability to mirror their experiences through nature and animals. She is interested in people's tendency to use external events, impulses, and cues from the environment to structure their own life experiences and events. By observing the cycle of nature, humans – as one natural creature among others – can gain perspective on the events of their own lives.

Annu Salminen has participated in several group and collective exhibitions and has held several solo exhibitions since graduating as a visual artist. In addition to making art, she teaches watercolour, acrylic, and oil painting, as well as different methods of printmaking and ceramics.

www.annusalminen.fi

Kiti and Annu on working together

Our way of working is improvisation or playing with different collages in the moment of making. When we start a project together, we have no exact idea where we will end up. Interaction shapes the artworks. Sometimes an image gives a hint of the kind of text that could be built on it. Sometimes a poem will bring to mind a colour or composition. Sometimes the collage-like combination of the pieces of the work – images or words – takes the work in a surprising direction. Sometimes the pairing of images and poems creates a whole that would not have been created without creative play. 

We started working together in autumn 2023, and our first exhibition was at Galleria Koppelon Vintti in Tampere in January 2024.

Dwi Setianto: still image of the video work Touch

Dwi Setianto

"My paintings are a combination of reality and imagination, where nature, people, animals, and abstractions interact. They reflect my visual research into things that are often overlooked or unseen, such as memories, emotions, the cycle of life, and the relationship between people, nature, and death. Nature, the environment, and everyday experiences inspire me to create. My creative process is usually very spontaneous, like a journey into an unknown world."

Dwi Setianto is an Indonesian-born visual artist based in Helsinki, Finland. He works with various drawing and painting techniques, installations, and sound, focusing in recent years on digital techniques, drawing, and animation. Dwi Setianto has held numerous solo exhibitions and art performances in Hong Kong and Jakarta, and in Finland at Tichenko Gallery, TM Gallery, Muu Gallery, and Pori Art Museum, among others, and has participated in several group exhibitions in Finland and internationally. He has studied fine arts at Lahti Institute of Fine Arts in Finland and Indonesia Institute of the Arts in Jakarta.

Instagram: @dwisetianto_studio

Johanna Väisänen: still image of the video work Organ River

Johanna Väisänen

Johanna Väisänen is a visual artist primarily working with video and installations. Her artistic practice explores the dynamic relationships between places, memories, and their various interpretations. Often incorporating collected or found objects, Johanna’s work invites audiences to reflect on the interplay of these elements. Since 2003, she has held several solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows and film festivals across Finland and Europe. 

www.johannavaisanen.com