ART CENTER AHJO, SYSI-HALL; KERRAN VIELÄ RIPUSTAN PYYKIT

ULLA REMES - ONCE AGAIN I HANG THE LAUNDRY 10.9.-28.9.2025
Installations and paintings

ULLA REMES SPREADS THE LAYERS OF HER CHILDHOOD HOME INTO THE SYSI HALL OF AHJO

The exhibition opening in Ahjo, Joensuu, concludes Ulla Remes's trilogy on the theme of abandonment. (The second part of the trilogy on the theme of abandonment, Ohut häkäys, which deals with memory loss, is on display at Kuopio University Hospital's G2 Corridor Gallery until the end of October).

Two years ago, after her mother died, the childhood home that had been in the family for 52 years was left empty – or rather full, because the generation that experienced the war kept almost everything that could possibly be needed. Her father had died 30 years earlier, and her father's hat had been on the shelf in the hallway all these years.

For her exhibition, visual artist Ulla Remes has assembled layers from different phases of a loving and close-knit family, from which she has now installed an inconsistent, colorful whole around a clothes and carpet rack in the Sysi hall of Ahjo. One wall is covered with paintings that Ulla Remes worked on in the 1980s while still living in her childhood home. On the other wall is a multi-meter-long work painted on paper that was created in the Koli artist residency during the year of mourning, the first after her mother's death. Remes, who is from Kuopio, has worked in numerous residency periods in North Karelia, especially at the Artist House Hupel.

In her background text for the Ahjo exhibition in Joensuu, the artist writes about the arc of two images: “My exhibition Kerran ahli ripustan pykit ties together two images from fifty years apart:

PHOTO 1

When I was a child in the 1970s, my mother wondered how long it took me to hang my laundry to dry. When she came to the backyard to pick me up from the apple trees and the clothesline, I simply replied that you can’t hang laundry just like that, you can’t make colors argue.

PHOTO 2

When I was 53, I dressed my mother for the last time in a red-and-black ball gown made from brush-painted fabric. Since then, I have worn her clothes, sorted them, given them away to new wearers, and some that have the taste, smell, texture, or appearance of her or my or our lives, I have put aside. I will hang my laundry to dry once more. They will be on display in the exhibition.”

A FLANELLE NIGHTGOWN HANGS FROM A GREEN LAUNDRY RACK AND MEMORIES GUIDE THE LABYRINTH

“The whole is structured so that there is a green carpet rack and a green laundry rack in the room, both in positions where they would not normally be. I hang clothes from different decades on them, a torn wool sock and flannel pants, a party hat and a sheath dress. Do you find any familiarity, do you recognize your own memories? I spread a labyrinth on the floor - how can we search for our father and mother even after their death, and how one can get lost in one’s own memories. What did life really feel like back then? Old photographs leading the way, rheumatism aids, cards, father and mother’s hats, childhood doll prams… and in front of the windows I place colorful curtains woven by my mother. On the wall I put a painting called Laundry from 1988, in which I work on the changes in human relationships during adolescence. I thought and still think that in all human relationships, there is a need to do laundry and sort out the differences - with the living and the dead - on some tolerable level.”

ABOUT THE ARTIST (abbreviated from the Artist Register): Ulla Remes is a strong colorist as a visual artist. Color and the emotion charged with it are significant in her intense, energetic works. As a technique, she uses mixed media, in which she uses water-soluble colors, utilizing the intense dialogue between thin and thick, delicate and strong, weak and durable. For her, the technique has a life-describing meaning: all of life is relationships and interaction, all of life is the presence of otherness, all of life is a balance between different individual and social needs while striving for harmony. Ulla Remes' themes are therefore often related to humanity, even though she does not directly depict people. At the same time, there is often a social message involved. Remes' work is multi-layered and participatory. Experiences and emotions are strongly present in the works. She has had 38 solo and 76 joint and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Ulla Remes' works are in numerous public collections. and in private collections. He is a member of the Finnish Painters' Association and a member of the Kuopio Artists' Association Ars Libera, as well as a board member of the Cultural Society Pielinen Lumo. Since 2010, he has worked for a month or two every year in international residencies, including the Finnish Institute of Athens artist residencies for three years, the Arts Promotion Center residencies in Arenys de Mar in Spain and Matera in Italy, the Finnish Artists' Association Studio Foundation residencies in Marbella in Spain and Grassina in Florence in Italy. In Finland, his art has been particularly influenced by residency periods in North Karelia. Remes also does live art with musicians, and is currently on the Värikamari2 tour with the Kuopio Chamber Music Society.

https://kuvataiteilijamatrikkeli.fi/taiteilija/ulla-remes

Ullaremes.net