Anu Tuominen’s gaze and thoughts are constantly in motion as she observes and seeks treasures in the material world that surrounds us. Every day, she discovers treasures invisible to others. Like a gatherer, she collects her findings and creates unexpected new contexts from them. She arranges and sorts, hangs or stacks. At times, she adds to her discoveries with yarn or paint.

All the human qualities we imbue our objects with becomes part of the artwork: their appearance, colour, shape, and material; their uses; their names in different languages; or the associations their names might evoke. Anu Tuominen dissolves the boundary between thought and feeling, playing equally with the colours of things as with meanings and language.

She is a sensual conceptual artist. Observing her art often evokes rapid associations, where a sense of familiarity and recognition coexists with surprise and a defamiliarisation of the everyday. She helps us see the world from a new perspective.

Anu Tuominen was born in 1961 in Lemi, Finland, and now lives and works in Helsinki. She holds a master’s degree from the Department of Interior Architecture and Furniture Design at the University of Art and Design UIAH and from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki. Anu Tuominen is one of Finland’s most acclaimed conceptual artists, with an active exhibition schedule both in her home country and on the international art scene. The Nordic Watercolour Museum’s exhibition is the first major presentation of her work in Sweden. Here, she has placed colour at the forefront: as a sensory expression, an organising principle, and as experience, concept, and idea.

Anu TuominenWrite Red in Blue

participating artists

Pictures from the exhibition