Rosa Helin

Rosa Helin works in Helsinki and Turku. She has held numerous solo exhibitions in Finland; in Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Sipoo and Oulu. Her works have been shown in group exhibitions in Italy, Austria, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, museums and art competitions. In 2021 and 2023, her work was selected as a finalist for the Carlsberg Foundation’s Nordic Portrait Now! portrait prize at the Danish National History Museum.

“Nowhere Else I’d Rather Be”

Rosa Helin’s work has been thematic for the last 5 years. For the last few years she has been painting on themes related to film noir and the fashion catalogue. Helin says she is inspired by aesthetics and people’s stories. Storytelling and moments are also present in Helin’s work.

“I am fascinated by moments, their memories and images and how time gilds memories. I don’t usually draw sketches, but I test different compositional options with contemporary techniques. I use photographs I’ve taken of spaces and people, or screenshots from films, TV series or fashion magazine catalogues.I usually modify the source images so that they cannot be directly linked to the original images. I crop, process and combine the images before using them in the actual painting process. Through colour matching, I want to create a certain mood in the painting. By using struck metals, charcoal and acrylic I bring my own variation of materials in addition to the colour matching. They take you to a different mood and imagination. I also enjoy the versatility of the handprint”.

Helen has always been interested in creating atmosphere, depicting people and animals. The viewer can build their own story from the work they experience. Ceramic subjects deal with encounters with animals and people. I like to use elements of clay in my work to express the essence of an animal or dog, and in some dog breeds, to bring out, perhaps unknowingly, human characteristics. Humour is allowed to appear in the works, the equation of the animal with the human being through the combination of glass and ceramics.