Alchemic realities
Alchemy is an ancient practice that sought to create gold from other metals. The contemporary artist as an alchemist, what could it mean?
Personally, I understand making art as an alchemic process where you start from everyday world and its banalities. An artist developes mundane materials until there would be a hint of the divine or the sublime. Questioning presuppositions of the world or human bodily existence, are alchemic tasks.
Approaching reality is a deeply alchemic process.
Fatal But Red, 2019, a digital painting by Ulla Karttunen
The exhibition ALCHEMIC BODY | FIRE . AIR . WATER . EARTH continues until January 31, 2020 at THE LINE Contemporary Art Space, London / 42 Newington Causeway, 11:00PM – 06:00PM | Tuesday – Sunday
Exhibition year 2019 / Ulla Karttunen
A major solo show at a museum in Rome and another in a Finnish art gallery, and 8 group exhibitions (Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles, London, Zürich, Aveiro, Helsinki, Hyvinkää…) formed the artistic program of the year 2019. Besides exhibitions and art fairs, Ulla’s works were featured in different publications, books and catalogues.
The group exhibition Manifesto of Stillness / Hiljaisuuden manifesti continued at The Hyvinkää Art Museum until 24th February 2019. Toilet paper madonna Donna Criminale (by Ulla Karttunen) was hanged on the 8 meter high roof.
Bela Biennial of European and Latin American Contemporary Art was held at the cultural center Casa França-Brasil in Rio de Janeiro from March until May. Digital painting The Eye of the Letter, 2019, by Ulla Karttunen (images above).
Art Fair Suomi ’19, international contemporary art festival, organised by Muu ry and Photographic Artists’ Association was in May at the Cable Factory, Helsinki. Above a detail of textile installation Coat by Prada, Tears by History (2019, 260x160x10cm) by Ulla Karttunen.
Donna Fatale, a solo exhibition of Ulla Karttunen, was on show from 29 May until 20 June 2019 at Gallery Uusi Kipinä, Lahti (above).
Digital art salons at Lacda, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, are dedicated to different forms of international contemporary digital art. Tractatus Poetico-Ecstaticus II (2019, image above), was one of the works of Ulla Karttunen at the show.
On June and July, Donna Fatale: metamorphoses of the modern, solo exhibition of Ulla Karttunen, curated by Sveva Manfredi Zavaglia, was presented at Museum Crocetti, in the eternal city of Rome. The vast exhibition consisted of over 30 artworks, eg. digital painting Bunny (Never) Smiles, by Ulla Karttunen (images above)
Festival dos Canais in the Portuguese town Aveiro offered a contemporary art exhibition called Eco-Logias Artisticas nos Canais / Artistic Eco-Logies on Channels at Galleria Antiga Capitania, in the center of the gallery was this hanged lady, Donna Criminale, toilet paper installation by Ulla Karttunen (images above).
Swiss Art Expo at SBB Evenhall Zürich Main Station in August presented both digital art and a new catalogue of Ulla’s art.
Helsinki Artists’ Association’s exhibition at Gallery Katariina in December was to be the last show in this gallery in the center of Helsinki; Ulla’s work was an assemblage depicting a bat person in glamour and pain. (Images above)
In the autumn Ulla started to restore and renovate Bedroom Gallery Bathroom Gallery’s permanent space in Paris, the Boudoir Rouge. Boudoir Rouge is a secret gallery, founded 1999, on the slope of Montmartre, just beside the Sacré-Cœur. It is a painting in which you can live, and an experiment if your life can become artwork, or not.
Boudoir Rouge has a scarlet bedroom whose passionate red shades are composed of all colours, a lime green salon, a lion-feet bathtub, and an aluminium kitchen. Although the house situates just two minutes from Sacré-Cœur, it is extremely silent, you hear only the birds singing in the green courtyard.
Boudoir Rouge was created to test the object-based conception of art. The near-by Moulin Rouge could be seen as a clichéd example of a spectator peeping at an object of attraction. In Boudoir Rouge the relationship of spectator/object has been turned over into more holistic, intimate and sensual level; if your life becomes art, nobody is staring at it.
The year ended in London. Ulla Karttunen’s work was selected to take part in group exhibition Alchemic Body, at THE LINE Contemporary Art Space.
London opening
ALCHEMIC BODY | fire . air . water . earth is an exhibition of contemporary art, focused on the concept of transformation, starting from the connections between alchemical processes and the human body.
The alchemists, recognized as the ancestors of modern chemists, worked to discover the ways the world is made. The mysterious practice of alchemy has always influenced art – alchemists and artists are fascinated by the concept of transformation and they both work to discover and create new possibile worlds. More from the exhibition here and here
ALCHEMIC BODY 2019, SELECTED ARTISTS: Anas Abro . Pakistan | Sureyya Acar . Turkey | Ibeabuchi Ananaba . Nigeria | Gregory Antipov . Russia | Patrizia Arrigo-Daumenlang . Germany | Neslihan Aydinlioğlu Eşin . Turkey | Avije Azadeh . Iran | Bob Bingham . USA | Bokiki . USA | Susan Carnahan . USA | Patricia Creyns . Belgium | Jelena Đurašković . Montenegro | Leilani Euphrosyne . Germany | Helena Faitelson . USA | Wenger Fant . Switzerland | Timo Frank . Germany | Botond Gagyi . Romania | Elena Gastón Nicolás . Spain | Heather Gentleman . Canada | Giacomo Giannelli . UK | Rita Grosse-Ruyken . Germany | Gabriele Höhne . UK | Lukas Horst . Germany | Shlomo Israeli . Israel | Ingunn Glomnes Johansen . Norway | Tuba Karakaş . Turkey | Ulla Karttunen . Finland | Oan Kyu . South of Korea | David Leitch . USA | Debbie YJ Lin . USA | Anastasia Lobkovski . Finland | Ron Miller . Germany | Deeya Mirchandani . UK | Motus Company . Italy | Anne Felicie Nickels . Sweden | Mari Nishimura . Japan | Crissy Oakfield . UK | Alessandra Pagliuca . Italy | Nina Pauloff . Spain | Natalie Penna . Australia | Gerhard Petzl . Switzerland | Sabrina Pirlot . France | Irena Prochazkova . Czech Republic | Héctor Rafael . USA | Hugo Rami (MyBrain) . Spain | Consuelo Rodriguez . Italy | G Roland . France | Deborah Sfez . Israel | Josephine Sloet . The Netherlands | Darja Štefančič . Slovenia | Gabriela Stellino . Germany | STUKAS1PUNTO8 . Italy | Rieko Tsuji . Japan | Tumbleweed . Belgium | Christel Van Hemelrijck . Belgium | Suzete Venturelli . Brazil | Michael Yamaoka . USA | Zinaïda . Ukraine
ALCHEMIC BODY | FIRE . AIR . WATER . EARTH. THE LINE Contemporary Art Space, London | December 20, 2019 – January 31, 2020. Organised by ITSLIQUID Group, in collaboration with Mercato Metropolitano and YMX Arts. 42 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6DR, UK, 11:00PM – 06:00PM | Tuesday – Sunday
Alchemic Body in London
The exhibition Alchemic Body / Fire. Air. Water. Earth has opened at the THE LINE Contemporary Art Space in London.Fatal But Red (2019, digital painting on acrylic and aluminium), by Ulla Karttunen, at Alchemic Body exhibition 
THE LINE Contemporary Art Space entrance 
Other views from London: shop window art 
In the wonderfully pink Sketch, the restaurant called the most beautiful in London
Bat Person in Glamour and Pain
No Angel Is Perfect (the fallen wing of a glamorous bat person), 2019, assemblage, by Ulla Karttunen, on show at Helsinki Artists’ Association’s Christmas Exhibition, Gallery Katariina, Helsinki 04.12.-29.12.2019.
Opening at Gallery Katariina
Helsinki Artists’ Association’s Christmas Exhibition was opened 3rd December at Gallery Katariina, in the center of Helsinki – on show 148 small works from 148 professional artists from Helsinki district. The exhibition is open until 29th December 2019. 
http://helsingintaiteilijaseura.fi/nayttelyt/helsingin-taiteilijaseuran-joulu/
Coming soon in London
Opening on Friday: Alchemic Body: fire / air / water / earth, THE LINE Contemporary Art Space, London GB 20.12.2019-31.01.2020. Curated by Luca Curci.
THE LINE Contemporary Art Space
42 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6DR, UK
11:00PM – 06:00PM | Tuesday – Sunday
The Eye of the Letter
The Eye of the Letter, by Ulla Karttunen (the work in the middle), at Swiss Art Expo in Zürich.
The Eye of the Letter was also presented at the permanent space of Artbox Gallery, Zürich, during September and November 2019.
Coming soon at Gallery Katariina
Helsinki Artists’ Association opens its Christmas exhibition at Gallery Katariina, Helsinki, showing 144 works from 144 artists. Exhibition opening and also Gallery Katariina’s ending party on Tuesday, December 3th at 5-7 pm.
Swiss Art Expo
The Eye of the Letter, 2019, digital painting by Ulla Karttunen, was one of the presented artworks at Swiss Art Expo, Zürich, 15-19 August 2019.
