I’ve had month-long artist residencies four times in the last seven years, each in a different country. I wasn't sure in the era of Covid that we’d actually get here (my wife, a journalist, joined me for the first ten days here.) Artists love travel and encountering new landscapes, meeting other artists, and discussing new ideas. Genius does not spring forth sui generis.
For me, a month like this offers time, not just to produce new work, but to adjust and refine the focus of my work and my working process. I'm primarily a traditional representational landscape oil painter. But it’s not convenient traveling with wet oil paintings on transatlantic flights so I work smaller, in watercolor, during a European residency. When a new watercolor excites my interest I’ll almost certainly develop the idea in my studio back in New York into a larger oil when I return home. One such example is shown here, a little beach maintained by Renja’s neighbor and made available to AARK artists. Perhaps here i should add that the Renja Lieno, artist and residency director together with the residency co-founder, her husband Bennku, seem to be doing everything in their power to make my stay here as stimulating and productive as possible. I’m planning the larger oil to be approximately 36 x 24 inches back in New York. This watercolor is a mere 16 x 12 inches.
The sea does not surrender as object. I spent a week in Korpo, AARK residence. The sea has been my artistic research subject. The sea invites you to the beach and to the very border, where the water and the stones gently rub against each other. The sea is by no means a distant friend. Last summer, the sea ate my phone, with lead my to retreat the social media for some time. Apparently, the sea has not changed its ways. Once again the sea took his son in close embrace and gave me a wet kiss.
Meri ei antaudu objektiksi. Olen viettänyt viikon Korppoossa, Aark-residenssissä. Täällä on mahtava energia! Meri on ollut tutkimuskohteenani. Meri kutsuu rannalle ja ihan siihen rajalle, jossa vesi ja kivet hankaavat toisiaan. Meri ei ole mitenkään etäinen ystävä. Viime kesänä meri söi minulta puhelimen, jonka myötä päädyin jatkamaan taiteellista työskentelyäni JA some-paastoa. Meri ei ole muuttanut tapojaan. Jälleen meri otti poikansa läheiseen märkään syleilyyn. Kiitos Renja ja Benkku vieraanvaraisuudesta, ja kutsusta käyttämään tätä tilaa.
With no specific goals in mind, I decided to spend my two weeks in solitary, as a sort of mix of holiday and retreat
What a strange year this has been. I was supposed to stay at AARK in March 2020 for two weeks but the pandemic changed those plans. My original idea was to get to know the sea a little better. I was painting a series of works for my exhibition called Loveboat. When I finally got to AARK in August, those paintings were already done.
With no specific goals in mind, I decided to spend my two weeks in solitary, as a sort of mix of holiday and retreat: walking, looking at the sea, reading and sketching. After the first day I was feeling so lonely and so bored! And then I ran into Molly and her family in the hallway, and she invited me to dinner. We became friends straight away. Then Hanna-Leena and Jyrki arrived also, and suddenly the house was full of life. I still continued my routines and spent a lot of time alone, but I wasn’t lonely anymore.
The Sunrise at AARK
To be honest, I really don’t like drawing but when I was staying at AARK, my favorite routines involved my sketchbook (that I normally don’t use ever). Every morning I would look out from my kitchen window and paint with watercolors what I saw. All the trees, the rocks on the parking lot, the pinecones…It was some sort of mindfulness practice for me. And then I would go outside by the sea and continue painting and drawing. There were so many amazing colors and shapes to be found! I really fell in love with the sea and the nature which felt familiar and strange at the same time. I loved the silence and all the animals I saw. I even loved that tiny snake that swam at the shore. I had never seen one before and was a bit scared of them before coming to AARK.
Spending time alone but also talking with other artists opened up new ways of seeing and thinking, even being. Thank you AARK and all the wonderful people!
When Renja invited us back in November for a week, Molly and I were so happy! I finally met Benkku and also Gill, who was staying there at the time. It was raining almost constantly, so we stayed indoors a lot. Since we rented a car, I was able to bring a lot of art supply with me. I was planning on mostly reading, knitting and eating but ended up working quite a lot, too. I started some tiny paintings that I finished later at my studio. I also did some linocut prints.
My linocut prints in the making
I really enjoyed seeing Korpo in different times of the year. Each time it was peaceful and beautiful in its own way. As a painter it is hard for me to work outside my studio. But at AARK I found new space for my thoughts, which is always important for an artist. Spending time alone but also talking with other artists opened up new ways of seeing and thinking, even being. Thank you AARK and all the wonderful people!
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I am told that in Finland November is known as the death month. Strange that I came here with a theme of Odysseus and the sirens in mind, as I had recently heard a piece of music composed by Swedish Anders Hillborg on this theme. Here on one of two large rocks: Korppoo and only 800m across to Nauvo. Here by the deep and narrow channel that allows huge ships to pass through to Turku.
What would this myth hold for me in my time here?
I had returned to AARK after being here in June for a month… midsummer month, long sun-filled days, a quiet contemplative time, seemingly far away from Covid-19…
The summer residency was spacious, meditative, spontaneous - a surprise collaboration with the other resident artist, ‘Before Our Eyes’
In the studio, flowing freely with the ink-drawing videos I was discovering… following the arising and passing of color on paper… creating rituals by the sea and up at the labyrinth in nearby Nauvo…
Now returning to AARK in the darkest month, the ink drawings emerging as light in the darkness…
Arriving on the first night the ark in the garden is joined by a new ship made by Benkku… funnels lit by candles and fairy lights twinkling in the portholes….
A few days later, I make a sound collage of the tale of Odysseus using spoken word and Sirens music… and sharing it with the other artists and Renja and Benkku there follows a discussion on what are today’s sirens… politics, fame, the restless pursuit of ungraspable happiness any which way…
And what are the artist’s sirens?
I have bones with me, reindeer bones found walking in Lapland, milky white and smooth as ivory… strange how I have also come with an injury from Lapland to my knee… my knee keeps locking and is forcing me to be still…
What must die under the spell of the sirens? What are the bones I must relinquish? Odysseus is tied to the mast of the ship so he doesn’t succumb to their song and stop his journey… ahh but he can still listen to their beautiful song… the song of impermanence… the song of transformation…that brings him home to soul…
I decide to take a boat trip… the Fiskö… arrange to join it at 7.30 am… I arrive in the dark… the dock is empty…
No signs of life… I wait… I record sounds of water lapping another boat moored on the second dock… then after a while… the sound of engines… the Fiskö appears out of the gloom…
By the time we set off, a bright sunlit morning is upon us and a flat calm sea… Fiskö weaves its way through the pattern of islands and skerries, stopping at one island to drop off the only car on board and to take on a small tractor on another island, then back to Korppoo. Islands come and go before my eyes… are they moving, or are we? The skerries are so alluring in the sunshine…if only, if only…
Back in the studio, more ink drawings in white on black, emerging from the darkness…
the two other artists in the residence are making prints listening to Peter Grimes… Molly had invited us the day before to join her in returning the artist’s book she had made from algae back to the Baltic. As we tore the pages into bite size pieces and cast them off from the shoreline, it was not long before little fish could be seen nibbling on the fragments… Towards the end of my stay the weather is turning drizzly in the November gloom, I watch out for mist in the mornings… then the wind starts up… looking out to sea, I hardly can believe my eyes… the wind has whipped up white horses on the wave tops but what’s this? A 20metre high shape made from sea spume racing across the sea’s surface in the distance - running as if on legs, or like some urgent dancer propelled perpetually forward - ephemeral, ghostly, unforgettable.
Many of the artist that have been in our residency during these years, are right now having important shows around the world. Here you can discover some of them.
Marco Dessardo, AARK artist 2019
The Marco Dessardo is having an exhibition in Brussels right now: Plans Anti-Dérive, Quadriennale de la Fuite. Some of the works in that exhibition were created while his residency at AARK. He was here in 2019 as a part of the Between Island project. You can read about that project in the issue N26 of Korpo Bladet.
Link to Dessardo´s webpage: http://dessardo.com/
Chris Sheridan, AARK artist 2019 coming back in 2021
Chris Sheridan was here in 2019 and have the intention to come back in the fall 2021 together with his wife and artist Kate (if the conditions allow them). Right now Chris has a solo show: Rediscovering Silence: A solo show of new paintings inspired by a recent art residency in the Finnish Archipelago.
You can read about the genesis of that show in our Work In Progress Artist Blog here.
Link to Chris Sheridan Webpage: SheridanArt
Molly Balcom Raleigh, AARK artist 2020
Molly Balcom Raleigh was here with her family in the summer 2020. She has just published a book about the Baltic sea: Baltic Sea book - Iltämerikirja. You can find more information about the book here.
Link to Molly´s webpage: mollybalcomraleigh.com
Lilli Haapala, AARK artist 2019 and board member.
Lilli Haapala, artist in residency in 2019 and AARK board member is having an exhibition in Aboa Vetus & Ars Nova until the 8.11.2020: Blues
You can find more information about the exhibition in the museum´s webpage here
"The newest installation from artist Lilli Haapala, titled Blues, is part of her multiyear project where she examines the concept of utopia from different viewpoints. Haapala is fascinated with the birth process of dreams, and the relationship between impressions and reality".
Link to Lilli´s webpage: www.lillihaapala.com
Venla Blom, musician, performance.
Marjut Brunila, writer
Susanna Tuuliainen, poet, writer.
Marja Salo, research phd writing.
AARK building facade
AARK warmly welcomes artists collective RUBUZAK by Appe Leppänen and Salla Sillgren for 1 month artist residency at AARK. They both graduated from TUAS Arts Academy Fine Arts in May 2020.
This residency grant is supported by Sparbanksstiftelsen i Korpo, thank you!
Vi tackar varm Sparbanksstiftelsen i Korpo för allt stöd!
Our yard is by the Sea Route.
AARK keeps temporary closed from today 17.3. and is opening again when possible, earliest 13.4.2020. We follow the official policy of Finland in Corona times.
We wish Safe Times to all our artists and friends and fellow citizens around the world!
Our warmest regards, Renja & Benkku
Welcome to contact us any time: info at aark.fi
Artist Alisa Tanaka King from Australia. Performance at AARK 2017.
Its +-0 C. Fresh winds. You can apply any time - contact [email protected]
