Over the past two decades, Päiväläinen’s unique works have become internationally renowned through their idiosyncratic language and style based upon her deep sense for story-telling. Essentially, the visual elements of Päiväläinen’s compositions can be boiled down to two: nature, and textiles. By joining them together she creates a stage on which to reenact memories of their passing. She creates deserted atmospheric vistas where intimate stories are lodged, told in a language that feels oddly foreign and familiar at once. The pristine nature, spared from the human activity, becomes Päiväläinen’s playground for an interaction between fabric installations, atmosphere and light. A quiet, but far from silent scenery. She suggests an imaginary narrative which evokes a feeling of past presence and enhances the idea of an unwritten and forgotten story.
Riitta Päiväläinen (*1969 in Maaninka, Finland) lives and works in Helsinki. Her work has been presented in several solo and group exhibitions, most recently at the Denver Art Museum (Denver, 2018), The Museum of Photography (Seoul, 2018), Gallery Taik Persons (Berlin, 2018) or the Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center (Budapest, 2017).