BIO

Leena Mertanen

b. 1986 Finland

Leena Mertanen is a multidisciplinary artist focusing on dramatic, expressive and visually explosive

unique (sculptures; works on paper + canvas) conceptual artworks and reproducible lens-based

mediums such as narrative, often staged self-portraits in digital format, analog black + white

photography and printmaking. She also works with audio, poetry, experimental single-channel film

and video with consistent themes creating different discipline bodies of works about what it is to be

human, a woman, a person and she also takes a stand in politics, human rights and examines

academically the history of her current mediums. Art to her means being alive and Mertanen is

driven about the subject, the primus motor in each of her artworks - it varies. Sometimes it is the

theme, often the research or the creative process itself. She engages her audience in a rhythmic

manner to take part in the world of hers, as well as wanting her pieces to live in theirs. Curious

about what can be said and done via different ”isms”, Mertanen is highly intuitive and intelligent in

her work and she is in a notable collection of Matthew Hockley Smith and various other private

collections worldwide.

ARTIST STATEMENT

There are things that no one can say but at least I try. How could I ever be specific and the truth

about existence when I am not even sure am I real? My attempts to decapitate being into tangible or

abstraction have lead me having almost 1000 signed-off works, many in private collections, and I

would like to consider myself as multidisciplinary artist but in reality I just learn and explore new

medias and mediums because I am driven and utterly curious about how to present my inner visions

in new, maybe experimental ways.

I have studied art since I was 15, later academically in Finland at the Academy of Fine Arts Helsinki

(Kuvataideakatemia). The process is on-going and after 20 years I think I may have managed to

scratch the surface.Pursuing my need to tell stories has resulted bodies of works about loneliness, happiness, isolation,

heartbreak and the fundamental feeling of the human condition which hit me pretty hard during my

trauma-victim years later becoming trauma-survivor me. Having experienced the brutality of evil in

us, it became sadly an inspiration to express the war in myself and I always ended up losing it, even

when I won.

I don’t consider myself ”talented”. I consider myself lucky, that I can always find something new to

express and angles to get a great spin from; and hard-working because I want to honor the time I

have dedicated to art each time I turn a new page in my studio. Being an artist is quite close to being

a researcher (which was a gold-medalist as a career choice until high school) as I have discovered;

it really is about failing long enough in something, until I find the factor that prevents the successful

outcome. It just really thrills me and although I haven’t exhibited often, my processes are hard,

heavy, sometimes beautiful to watch - hear - see - sense - or witness. Some could say that the

isolation I have felt so deeply because of my trauma-related health condition may have created the

constructional architect in me who builds bridges everywhere instead of walls.

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