OUT OF ORDER – Roos Johannes Hermsen, Katri Paunu

Roos Hermsen (NL) and Katri Paunu (FI) met during their first year at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and have since collaborated on various projects, which are being presented in video documentation for the first time in Finland at Poriginal. Their sculptural performances drew influences from several artistic disciplines, particularly music and large, strange, moving figures combined with light and soundscapes. The aim of the performances was to create an experimental and multidimensional artistic experience.

Out of Order continues the same themes but focuses on the artists’ individual fields: painting and sculpture. The exhibition title refers to a kind of malfunction that the artists explore by either manipulating and playing with the fundamental meaning levels of painting or contemplating humanity’s impact on nature and the reduction of biodiversity.

Roos Hermsen

Hermsen’s paintings play with the formation of figures and representation. Drawing inspiration from literature and a wide variety of visual material, she embraces the risk of not knowing what the painting will become, incorporating an element of change into the work. Can the figure endure multiple layers of fast and messy paint? How does it relate to vague abstract areas or contradictory titles?

“When I paint, I am searching for something. I try to capture a glimpse of momentary irony or romantic ambiguity from behind the scenes.”

Katri Paunu

Katri Paunu’s work is centered around material and natural processes. She uses ceramics, plaster, wax, wood, and living materials like fungi or plants in her sculptures, which come together as installations in space. In addition, Paunu has worked with painting and animation. Her themes are inspired by alchemy, biology, and archaeology. She seeks intersections between her chosen themes and the processes related to the materials. The formation of her sculptures is strongly rooted in intuitive work and does not focus on a predetermined outcome.

The works designed for the Poriginal space, such as Salt Pillars, relate to the building’s history as a salt storage facility. In the Hydra installation, the central idea is an artificial and fragile ecosystem, which is tested as insects that live off the moisture from fungi may end up in a flytrap.

The sculptures address humanity’s relationship with and impact on the environment, reflecting the state of uncertainty and how to navigate toward an uncertain future. In the works, growth and decay appear as dominant and slow phenomena that sustain the continuous circulation of all matter, connecting life and death.