Marjatta Tapiola

Marjatta Tapiola’s works are passionate and expressive. Her style as well as subject matter have a powerful visceral and sensory quality to them. Tapiola’s breakthrough happened during the rise of neo-expressionism in the early 1980s, yet her highly distinctive work cannot be fitted into the confines of established art movements.

The artist’s personal life and surroundings are reflected in the themes of her work, which in the 1980s took a critical view of humanity and in the 1990s moved towards an investigation of dead animals and skulls. In the new millennium, the beauty liberated by the skulls manifested itself the form of vigorous horses and bulls and Greek mythology. Some of the artist’s most recent works reference her favourite poems.

In the early 1980s, Marjatta Tapiola received the Finnish Art Society’s Dukaatti prize and the Critics’ Spurs prize of the Finnish Critics’ Association. In 1997, Tapiola was one of the candidates for the Ars Fennica Award, and in the 2000s she was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal and the State Prize for Art. Tapiola has also been a highly respected portrait painter throughout her career. A portrait by her of the President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, painted when he was Speaker of the Finnish Parliament, will be officially published in February.

The exhibition also includes a catalogue presenting the artist’s work and its themes from a variety of perspectives. The exhibition is produced by the Helsinki Art Museum in cooperation with the Finnish Institute in St Petersburg. New works from Marjatta Tapiola are also being exhibited at Galleria Sculptor from 13 Feb till 3 Mar, 2013.