PHOTOGRAPHIC DIARY OF NINA KORHONEN TELLING THE STORY OF EACH MAN‘S LIFE 5

Austėja Masiokaitė
www.kamane.lt, 2011-08-25
Director of the Latvian Museum of Photography Maira Dudareva
Author of the exhibition Nina Korhonen
N. Korhonen speaking with a festival guest from North Korea
Visitors of the exhibition
Visitors of the exhibition
Visitors of the exhibition
Visitors of the exhibition
Photograph "Painting without a Face"

In brief: The photography exhibition of Nina Korhonen “Rewind” met visitors by a photograph of a portrait with the cut-out face during the presentation at Vytautas Magnus University art gallery 101 on the 24th of August.

“Painting without a Face” was born while the author and her mother tidied up things of her late grandmother. The portrait of the late grandmother painted by N. Korhonen’s grandfather once but never loved by the grandmother was among those things. The mother did not want to take the painting to Finland but did not want to leave it; as a result, she found a solution – she cut out the painted face. In this way the very personal and on another hand very impersonal painting became a wonderful introduction to the exhibition “Rewind”, which tells a very personal story sometimes but which speaks about each of us at the same time.

“It is a look at the circle of life, at the woman’s life from the perspectives of different age, place and lifestyle,” the author described her works. “I hope that, being very personal, the works will reveal something about each man’s life. I thought that frankness and sincerity would make an impact on people.”

“The photographs take us to childhood and help to remember our closest and dearest people,” commented the director of the Latvian Museum of Photography Maira Dudareva, who accompanied the exhibition from Latvia.

“Rewind” has no general mood or strict frames of some genre. Some of the works are painterly, have strict composition, the author’s husband Tore looking down from a photograph looks as if he had been painted (his oncological disease incited the author to start a photo diary seven years ago).

Meanwhile, other works remind of photo journalism or documentary; they become very personal sometimes and let the viewer take a look at moments of family life: the daily life of the author and her family or to see the grandmother lying ill on a bed.

Despite the authenticity, the photographs tell not only about the life of the author but remind of general themes of love, loss, joy and sadness familiar to everyone. Like the hole that remained in the portrait, the entire exhibition invites to poke one’s head there: to feel, remember and experience anew, to fill the story by one’s own details and memories.

The exhibition “Rewind” is part of the programme of the 8th festival Kaunas Photo. The exhibition will be open at 101 gallery until the 2nd of September.


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