Ritva Larsson

"This exhibition consists of paintings that have some kind of connection with Art history. Some of the works are connected only referral and some of them are connected visibly and strongly. National and international classics of the arts history have inspired my paintings. Thanks to the collections of Ateneum Museum the weight has been clearly in the Golden Age Finnish Art.

I have brought the paintings to modern time, daily life and re-edited also their ideological content. Women are playing cards in "nowhere", in abstract state; patient has grown old, Virginie has cut her hair and women have kept their clothes on while having lunch on the grass (Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe). In this connection I have wanted to take a stand on how and who are being represented in the pictures. The works of art are depicting also my own reality, subcultural world of middle-aged women from Kallio district.

Of course working on pieces from the history of arts has been a hommage to the original works, although my view has been a bit ambivalent. Lunch on the Grass is, regardless of its odd view on women, a work of geniality and Edelfelt's self-portrait has touched me besides being amusing. Boy and crow depicts a poor, ragged child, a painting that has surely served in forming of the national identity: in my own work of art an underpaid woman is wondering about a crow. The idea for a girl playing cello, I got from Music and silence exhibition in Ateneum. Most of the Finnish artists from the golden age era have depicted the devoted and concentrated mood of playing an instrument."

Artist meeting with Ritva Larsson on June 6th, 2009 at 14-16