Jenni Eskola: With time

What is the duration of a work of art? When is a work finished, and what happens then?

“I work with time; I investigate duration in both its physical and temporal aspect. What are the time constraint we operate within? Why do some things come to being gradually, piece by piece, only to disintegrate in an instant, while some other things change imperceptibly over time? How can we try to understand those changes and make them visible?”

Eskola often uses paper as the support in her work – she sees something fascinating in the fact that paper has a long history, even though it is fragile and prone to tearing. The pigment in her paintings is chlorophyll from plants. Because it deteriorates rapidly when exposed to light, it is constantly changing, bleaching, vanishing.

“Often the gradual disappearance of a work seems just as important as its making. Perhaps that is why I see my practice as a kind of performance that makes perceptible the transitoriness and ephemerality of things rather than as a process of making permanent works of art.”

This exhibition is supported by the Kone Foundation, the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.