Johanna Lemettinen
Basic information
Visual Artist
Residence: Helsinki
Artist’s Statement
I paint large oil paintings which draw from feminism. I am particularly interested in playing with gender roles and examining identity, privacy, carnality, sexuality and intimacy. The female character in my paintings is asking whether sexuality is something natural or is it something created by society, its power structures and similar mechanisms. How are power and sexuality related? In what ways are women viewed in contemporary western society? How could womanhood be understood, and how could women respond to such gaze?
The body is something that is genuine and inherently related to the deepest part of human identity, but occasionally it can also be a mere facade and surface. Therefore, an individual's experience of their own flesh can be contradictory, sometimes even paradoxical. The body is private, but at the same time it is subject to gaze and a potential object.
My work is related to the so called Memento mori paintings. In the memento mori paintings, sexuality is linked with death and carnality, even religiosity, and their female character can either be a powerless victim or a lethal femme fatale.
The body is something that is genuine and inherently related to the deepest part of human identity, but occasionally it can also be a mere facade and surface. Therefore, an individual's experience of their own flesh can be contradictory, sometimes even paradoxical. The body is private, but at the same time it is subject to gaze and a potential object.
My work is related to the so called Memento mori paintings. In the memento mori paintings, sexuality is linked with death and carnality, even religiosity, and their female character can either be a powerless victim or a lethal femme fatale.
