Laura Pehkonen: Comfort Zone, 2021
Comfort Zone, exhibition at Rio11-gallery, Helsinki, December 2021
“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” César A. Cruz
Artistic work is often wandering around the edges of the comfort zone: while working on the unpredictability of ceramic materials, the traction of a brush stroke, or the irreversibility of a chisel, the uncertainties on which my work is built. The chance of success and failure is almost always present in my work.
When dealing with the materials I use, I also often work on the various contradictions, difficulties, and sorrows that life has accumulated for me. I deliberately don’t try to introduce the heavy material I handle in them, but I also don’t feel need to hide it. It is strongly present to me when I am implementing my works – not as pictorial subjects or themes but as some kind of anonymous basic material. Sometimes that too pushes me as far away from my comfort zone as I would like.
The quote above, from theologian César A. Cruz, has been handwritten on a piece of paper I have taped to the wall of my studio for years now. It reminds me that in art I have to step out from my comfort zone, but from it I also find the refuge and counterbalance I am longing for; joy, play and comfort.
Photos by Miikka Pirinen
Photo captions
- Comfort Zone, overview, solo exhibition, Rio11-gallery, Helsinki, Finland. December 2021
- Comfort Zone, overview, solo exhibition, Rio11-gallery, Helsinki, Finland. December 2021
- Curtain, 2021, glazed stoneware. 80 x 51 cm. Big Pale Asparagus, 2021, hand built stoneware, engobe, underglaze color, glazes
- Stick, 2021, woodfired ceramic, glaze, 40 x 6 cm. Hani, 2021, glazed ceramic, 10 x 8,5 cm
- Doble doix, 2021, hand carved birch
- Musti, 2021, hand built ceramic, 41 x 41 cm. Arch, 2021, glazed ceramic, 33 x 20 cm
- Musti, 2021, hand built ceramic, 41 x 41 cm
- Curtain, 2021, glazed stoneware. 80 x 51 cm
- Arc de Triomphe, 2021, hand built stoneware, glazes, 51 x 32 cm
- Big Pale Asparagus, 2021, hand built stoneware, engobe, underglaze color, glazes
- Arch, 2021, glazed ceramic, 33 x 20 cm
- Arch, 2021, glazed ceramic, 33 x 20 cm
- Night, 2021, glazed ceramic, 10 x 19 cm. Mince, 2021, glazed ceramic, 26,5 x 14,5 cm
