Anna Retulainen: Butterfly Garden

Anna Retulainen's new paintings offer a deep dive into a garden dedicated to insects.

For the past fifteen years, Anna Retulainen has been creating a garden that has emerged in a key role in her paintings. The garden is itself an artwork in this exhibition. 

Retulainen’s garden and its plants exist mainly for the benefit of insects. Insect decline is a heartfelt concern for the artist, who deals with this theme both through painterly expression and contemplation of beauty.

A garden is a miniature human-made world – a picture of nature. It is no coincidence that many artists keep gardens. Retulainen strives to interfere as little as possible with the natural cycle of the plants in her garden. Her relationship with her garden, its plants, trees and insects is a straightforward one: here, people are merely visitors.

Anna Retulainen (b. 1969) divides her time between Helsinki and Berlin. She has exhibited her work in Finland and internationally since the 1990s, and her paintings are found in all major Finnish art collections. Retulainen has been painting gardens for over thirty years. Butterfly Garden is her seventh solo exhibition at Helsinki Contemporary.

Helsinki Contemporary

9.8.-8.9.2024

Free entry