Finnish Artists’ Association’s Artist Award speech (16th December 2023)
Saara Hacklin - Chief Curator of Collections, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki.
Honoured artists, colleagues, dear Raisa Raekallio Misha Del Val,
I want to start with an image: in it, a small girl sits by the table after school. The village where she lives is called Sirkka, in Kittilä. The place is small and there are not many friends to play with. No other girls in her class. However, she likes to draw and paint. In the afternoons, sitting by the table, she finds company in her drawings – the world is suddenly alive.
Misha comes from Bilbao, from the Basque Country in Spain, a city that has an industrial history – and since a few decades, a museum with a prestigious name. Misha took a detour on his way to Finland via Australia, but is now based in the village of Sirkka.
When Raisa and Misha paint together, strange characters are being born out of their dialogue. The scenes open into happenings that take place in the isolation of a cabin or sauna, or where a group of people are bundled into some strange activity in the landscape. The spaces of their paintings somehow both situate themselves in North, but also reach out to different times and spaces: in them outside can be inside, inside can be outside. Depth surface and surface depth. People come together – and melt away into abstractions again.
Our paths crossed with Raisa and Misha few years back, after they participated in the Lumipalloefekti exhibition in Oulu, in 2021. At that time, the Wihuri Foundation decided to buy their painting Mökki (Cabin) for their collection. At the same time, together with my curator colleagues Kati Kivinen and Satu Oksanen, I was finalising the list of works for an exhibition of the Wihuri Collection, called Navigating North, to be held in the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. We felt strongly that, despite the hectic timetable, we definitely needed to include this painting in that exhibition.
Raisa and Misha described how the Mökki painting had been born during the Covid pandemic when, in order to break from the dullness of all the isolation, they dressed up and played together. The painting opens up to an imaginary party of people, gathering in a cabin during strange times when the whole world was in isolation together. The table, around which the characters are sitting, looks like a glowing globe.
I think Mökki is exemplary of their practice. In their paintings, one often finds strange characters: humans, creatures… some are wearing masks, which carry references to different traditions. I find myself repeatedly coming across characters that remind me of the commedia dell’arte tradition. Especially the character of the harlequin – you know, the one with the suit made out of patches like an abstract painting. A poor servant, always ready to do tricks, and always hungry. This character can also speak the truth and get away with it.
Recently, the Director of the Finnish Museum of Photography, Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger, stated in the TV programme Kulttuuri Cocktail that “…to be an artist is already a political choice”. I agree, in these times when art and culture are not protected enough, to work as an artist is already a political choice.
To me it seems clear that Raisa and Misha have made a political choice. In their practice, there is a particular drive to do together: when painting together, they are summoning otherworldly characters through their dialogue. However, they are also doing that in real life. There is a generosity and curiosity in what they do, their practice is about summoning people together through organising events, biennales, exhibitions, participating in discussions, cooking mushroom risotto, and simply resisting the idea that there is only one location for being an artist in Finland. Following their practice, I think they are making Sirkka, Kittilä, the place through which we should all make our way in this world. And who knows, sometimes I think we all have already been there, at least in their paintings.
My warmest congratulations to you Raisa and Misha.
Honoured artists, colleagues, dear Raisa Raekallio Misha Del Val,
I want to start with an image: in it, a small girl sits by the table after school. The village where she lives is called Sirkka, in Kittilä. The place is small and there are not many friends to play with. No other girls in her class. However, she likes to draw and paint. In the afternoons, sitting by the table, she finds company in her drawings – the world is suddenly alive.
Misha comes from Bilbao, from the Basque Country in Spain, a city that has an industrial history – and since a few decades, a museum with a prestigious name. Misha took a detour on his way to Finland via Australia, but is now based in the village of Sirkka.
When Raisa and Misha paint together, strange characters are being born out of their dialogue. The scenes open into happenings that take place in the isolation of a cabin or sauna, or where a group of people are bundled into some strange activity in the landscape. The spaces of their paintings somehow both situate themselves in North, but also reach out to different times and spaces: in them outside can be inside, inside can be outside. Depth surface and surface depth. People come together – and melt away into abstractions again.
Our paths crossed with Raisa and Misha few years back, after they participated in the Lumipalloefekti exhibition in Oulu, in 2021. At that time, the Wihuri Foundation decided to buy their painting Mökki (Cabin) for their collection. At the same time, together with my curator colleagues Kati Kivinen and Satu Oksanen, I was finalising the list of works for an exhibition of the Wihuri Collection, called Navigating North, to be held in the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma. We felt strongly that, despite the hectic timetable, we definitely needed to include this painting in that exhibition.
Raisa and Misha described how the Mökki painting had been born during the Covid pandemic when, in order to break from the dullness of all the isolation, they dressed up and played together. The painting opens up to an imaginary party of people, gathering in a cabin during strange times when the whole world was in isolation together. The table, around which the characters are sitting, looks like a glowing globe.
I think Mökki is exemplary of their practice. In their paintings, one often finds strange characters: humans, creatures… some are wearing masks, which carry references to different traditions. I find myself repeatedly coming across characters that remind me of the commedia dell’arte tradition. Especially the character of the harlequin – you know, the one with the suit made out of patches like an abstract painting. A poor servant, always ready to do tricks, and always hungry. This character can also speak the truth and get away with it.
Recently, the Director of the Finnish Museum of Photography, Anna-Kaisa Rastenberger, stated in the TV programme Kulttuuri Cocktail that “…to be an artist is already a political choice”. I agree, in these times when art and culture are not protected enough, to work as an artist is already a political choice.
To me it seems clear that Raisa and Misha have made a political choice. In their practice, there is a particular drive to do together: when painting together, they are summoning otherworldly characters through their dialogue. However, they are also doing that in real life. There is a generosity and curiosity in what they do, their practice is about summoning people together through organising events, biennales, exhibitions, participating in discussions, cooking mushroom risotto, and simply resisting the idea that there is only one location for being an artist in Finland. Following their practice, I think they are making Sirkka, Kittilä, the place through which we should all make our way in this world. And who knows, sometimes I think we all have already been there, at least in their paintings.
My warmest congratulations to you Raisa and Misha.
Raisa Raekallio & Misha del Val
Mökki, 2021
178 x 220 cm, oin on linen
Wihuri Foundation Collection, Rovaniemi Art Museum
Mökki, 2021
178 x 220 cm, oin on linen
Wihuri Foundation Collection, Rovaniemi Art Museum
Intro for exhibition ’That’s Right, Hold My Hand’ Said the Lumberjack to the Limping Buddha
Raisa Raekallio & Misha del Val
Philosopher: So, what do you want?
Skier: I don’t remember anyone having asked me that before.
The Clown, the Pilot and the Samurai: We want to be free!
Sunday painter: I assumed I wanted, you know, the typical, liberation, fulfilment, ummm Enlightenment… having a bit of fun perhaps.
R&M: We just want to make decent paintings.
Samoyed: I want freedom! Please tell me what to do.
Philosopher: Good. Now, why don’t you just be still? (Her smile embraced the whole universe)
Cossack: But how do I do that? What do I have to do??
Skier: Maybe I don’t speak for nine years…
Samoyed: I won’t even move!
Old Lady Playing Cards: I’ll hold my breath from now on (getting purple)
Philosopher: Stop that silly-billy. Relax, just let be.
R&M: But we’re afraid, If we’re still, if we let go… We’ll regress to square one. We’ll be a failure all over again!
Soul: Ay a fear of losing myself, of losing my core, of going to pieces, something inhuman, is taking over me…
Philosopher: Let be, my dear. It’s just Life, doing its thing.
Samurai: I try! I try! I try!
Sauron: Come together, let’s hold hands.
For a moment, the company came to a halt. It allowed itself to be afraid, confused, joyful, tired. The scary music just played its part. Then at once the surface of the lake became still and transparent.
Philosopher: Ok, good, what do you want now?
Phillip Glass: I don’t… want anything… right now…
The boundaries between beings became bit blurred.
Cossack: Oh cut that bullshit. You need to be strong. If you are not with me, you are against us. Burp!
Clown: They laugh at me, but I don’t mind. I have met the face of Christ, I have seen the headless, the deathless, Howl’s Moving Castle, our eyes were inflamed, our hearts pounding like rabbits, I have penetrated the gentle wisdom of trees.
Sunday painter and R&M: The vistas from here are really handsome!
Philosopher: So, what do you want?
Skier: I don’t remember anyone having asked me that before.
The Clown, the Pilot and the Samurai: We want to be free!
Sunday painter: I assumed I wanted, you know, the typical, liberation, fulfilment, ummm Enlightenment… having a bit of fun perhaps.
R&M: We just want to make decent paintings.
Samoyed: I want freedom! Please tell me what to do.
Philosopher: Good. Now, why don’t you just be still? (Her smile embraced the whole universe)
Cossack: But how do I do that? What do I have to do??
Skier: Maybe I don’t speak for nine years…
Samoyed: I won’t even move!
Old Lady Playing Cards: I’ll hold my breath from now on (getting purple)
Philosopher: Stop that silly-billy. Relax, just let be.
R&M: But we’re afraid, If we’re still, if we let go… We’ll regress to square one. We’ll be a failure all over again!
Soul: Ay a fear of losing myself, of losing my core, of going to pieces, something inhuman, is taking over me…
Philosopher: Let be, my dear. It’s just Life, doing its thing.
Samurai: I try! I try! I try!
Sauron: Come together, let’s hold hands.
For a moment, the company came to a halt. It allowed itself to be afraid, confused, joyful, tired. The scary music just played its part. Then at once the surface of the lake became still and transparent.
Philosopher: Ok, good, what do you want now?
Phillip Glass: I don’t… want anything… right now…
The boundaries between beings became bit blurred.
Cossack: Oh cut that bullshit. You need to be strong. If you are not with me, you are against us. Burp!
Clown: They laugh at me, but I don’t mind. I have met the face of Christ, I have seen the headless, the deathless, Howl’s Moving Castle, our eyes were inflamed, our hearts pounding like rabbits, I have penetrated the gentle wisdom of trees.
Sunday painter and R&M: The vistas from here are really handsome!
In conversation with Amanda Hakoköngäs, curator of Aine Art Museum, on the occasion of our exhibition 'Lapin piha' at the museum.
AMANDA: For me, the act of painting always seems like mystery or even like magic. The touch of a brush or a pen creating new worlds. What is happening in the act of painting?
RAISA: Painting is truly a mystery, something we often marvel at aloud in the studio. The mystery is strongly present when our own ideas and plans for the finished work give way, and the painting’s own will begin to emerge. This is a magnificent and mystical event, and it is certainly not something that can be commanded or dictated. Sometimes it takes quite a struggle before this state of flow begins to occur. The process of painting is never the same, and there is no ready-made formula for a successful painting.
MISHA: Thank you, it’s good to start with a trivial subject (laughs). Yep, making marks has something atavistic and magical, and something inherently human, about it. And maybe the way to go, in order not to spoil its mysterious nature, is to avoid talking head-on about it. Usually, the enterprise of trying to disclose and leave the mystery out in the open –where it doesn’t belong– is bound to end up in a puddle of quicksand.
Inhabiting the mystery, and coming up with original strategies, poetic strategies, evocative strategies to honour that mystery is, I reckon, one of the functions of the practice of painting and probably the very reason why we bother to go to the studio every morning. That’s what, when successful, a painted image is: an evocation and a celebration of the Mystery.
AMANDA: When I imagine you two working there in Kittilä in your studio, I imagine you are somehow dancing around the canvas. How is it to paint together and to share the creative process with another person?
MISHA: Have you ever noticed that in a museum or a gallery, when you look at works of art with different people you see different things, you open up to different layers of perception and sensitivity? The company we are in makes us see different things, it makes us perceive differently. So, the same happens when painting with someone else. Painting with Raisa allows me to tap into parts of myself I would not have access to in different circumstances. Painting with her makes me a kind of entity that I couldn’t be otherwise. It is true to say that we make paintings none of us could have ever dreamt of doing individually.
RAISA: And we have many ways of painting together. Often, we have a plan that we follow to a certain point, after which the painting itself begins to show the way. When working on a larger painting with enough space, we can paint simultaneously, improvising a lot, each following our own impulses, while listening to each other and the messages from the painting. An inner knowing comes and tells us which colour to choose and mix, how to apply it, whether to use a particular brush or if I should spread the paint on the canvas with my fingers. Sometimes, we dart around each other, adding paint here and there, almost like dancing. It’s a bit like a jazz jam session. Painting is, in many ways, about listening and responding.
At other times, we work on pieces alternately, with only one of us in the studio at a time. Later, the other picks up where the first one left off. Or we work on separate pieces simultaneously in the same space. At times, we pause, comment, and discuss what’s happening on the canvas. Or we remain silent and progress through the painting like gliding on a ski trail.
MISHA: And sharing the creative process has many advantages! For one thing, we can do more work in less time because it is two of us. It feels great when you are washing dishes at home, and you know that the painting is going forward in the studio without you being there. Of course, that takes a considerable amount of trust.
AMANDA: What is the space you are creating in your work? Or more specifically, what is the space you are painting in this Lapin piha exhibition? Where did this space come from? When looking at your earlier works, I somehow feel that there is some shared space already which continues with the new Lapin piha exhibition works. It is hard to describe what it is, but I feel there are several (often paradoxical) feelings inside your works. And that feels really interesting and good.
MISHA: We have done paintings where the characters gather in a laavu, or a sauna, or a cabin, or a forest, spaces that are familiar to us. Ours is a highly subjective take on the landscape. We all perceive the landscape differently, and so we capitalise on those personal interactions, on the intimate perceptions and connections we have with the landscape. In Lapin piha, sure, you see our surrounding landscapes with traces of human activity, which are so pictorial — things being stored, forgotten, abandoned — they might even look hilarious at times.
RAISA: I indeed draw a great deal of inspiration from the landscapes of my childhood. I’ve also travelled the world and lived in other parts of Finland, as well as abroad for stretches, before moving back to Lapland. The northern landscape has always been incredibly important and dear to me — a landscape of the soul. Living surrounded by nature, amidst the trees, the landscape naturally becomes part of our paintings.
Misha’s way of observing the landscapes of Lapland has given me a new perspective on how to see the environment and experience the seasons. Especially the in-between seasons, not particularly appreciated by many, by the way. Thickets, willow groves, and all kinds of shrubbery have started to appear more interesting, their grey and brownish tones, during the times before snow arrives, and in May just after it melts.
MISHA: Interesting you (Amanda) mention the word paradox, because it is really important and fertile ground for us. I believe the truth to be always ultimately clear and paradoxical. It is through paradox that one can gently hold different, and apparently divergent aspects of reality at once. Lack of paradoxical intelligence may lead to simplistic, one-sided truths, which we call beliefs. When a dose of paradox is present, dichotomies tend to fall apart and life activates.
In the case of Lapin piha, I don’t think we are just trying to make value statements within the old antithesis between built-up, human landscape vs. the natural, pure scenery, even though both elements are distinctively present. There are artists doing much-needed and very elegant work about it already. Rather, we are maybe expressing here our sympathy –our tenderness even– for our human clumsiness, alongside a profound devotion we feel for the northern nature. For us, these works might be a way to put forward a larger vision of Nature, one that embraces and transcends that antithesis.
AMANDA: I read this book “Painting Beyond Itself” which I had with me in Kittilä and artist Julie Mehretu wrote there about painting “Improvisation can be a radical possibility. Painting as performative time” and “The Painting is performance (in making and seeing/looking)”. I really liked the notion of improvisation, which I guess is also a big part of your work? Do you see painting partly as a performance? For me looking at a painting is a totally different process than looking at a performance.
MISHA: I have been giving some thought to this recently. At the beginning, it is important for us to have an idea, an idea exuding vitality, which sets the general orientation of the project, of the painting. And then, when you are actually working on it, you can be flexible and open to different directions, listen to what the moment is asking, where lies the clearest resonance and vitality. So you cannot do without an idea, but in a way, it’s just the spark to get us going. The real substance crops up in the making. There is, of course, a push and pull, and lots of trial and error involved. And so improvisation, being awake to the impulse of the moment, plays a major part.
I have been, for a long time, interested in painting with an audience. I think the act of painting, when it flows, when it goes well (which is not all the time!) is soo beautiful. It would be so alluring just to watch, just to witness. I hope I, or we, will have some opportunity to do that in the near future. In Australia, I have worked with musicians, painting while they played music. It was fun and full-on. The thing with painting is that it usually is a delayed means of communication. You do your thing there in the sanctuary of your studio, mostly alone, and the transmission happens –if it happens– later on, when someone takes the painting in. It’s like listening to a recorded studio album, which can also be fantastic, by all means. However, I’d love to have both: the studio album and the live gig.
RAISA: For me, words like spaciousness, joy, connectedness with what is, presence, state of flow, come forth when talking about improvising. It is a force that I am very much drawn to in my life, I think since I was a little girl. Maybe it got a bit lost on the way at some point in the midst of my adult life. Thank God I found painting again! I have a strong motivation and yearning to reconnect with that playful, free energy. By painting, it is possible to summon that force and get in touch with the natural intelligence that lurks in all of us, and shines through us. Painting together with another person that you trust can also give you access to that relaxed, joyous space.
AMANDA: Finally, how is it to be a contemporary artist based in Lapland in 2024?
MISHA: It is great! I think it is really good. We are very happy to be part of the contemporary art scene in Lapland. I think Raisa is very proud of coming from Lapland, and that becomes contagious. She always makes sure that people understand we are coming from Lapland (laughs). There are really interesting things going on here in the north, for instance a sense of community shaped by long distances and a commanding presence of nature, and the mutual interest and collaborations with other northern areas, in particular northern Sweden and northern Norway.
This is all quite recent to us. It was only in 2019 that we became part of the Artist’s Association of Lapland, and almost immediately became members of its Board, where I have been involved since. That’s when we started to meet people in Rovaniemi and other parts of Lapland. Before that, the five first years I was here, we were practically on our own, doing our thing in Kittilä.
RAISA: The artist community in Lapland is very important to us—our colleagues, friends—and so it is its nature. Just knowing that our colleagues are there is a big thing. It feels like Lapland is the place to be; there are opportunities for collaboration, plenty of energy, peace for creating, and the ever-present natural scenery with its forests, fields, rivers and fells. For us, Lapland is also a great springboard for reaching international audiences. Nowadays, it’s quite easy to build connections online. Being this far north doesn’t mean one is missing out—quite the opposite.
RAISA: Painting is truly a mystery, something we often marvel at aloud in the studio. The mystery is strongly present when our own ideas and plans for the finished work give way, and the painting’s own will begin to emerge. This is a magnificent and mystical event, and it is certainly not something that can be commanded or dictated. Sometimes it takes quite a struggle before this state of flow begins to occur. The process of painting is never the same, and there is no ready-made formula for a successful painting.
MISHA: Thank you, it’s good to start with a trivial subject (laughs). Yep, making marks has something atavistic and magical, and something inherently human, about it. And maybe the way to go, in order not to spoil its mysterious nature, is to avoid talking head-on about it. Usually, the enterprise of trying to disclose and leave the mystery out in the open –where it doesn’t belong– is bound to end up in a puddle of quicksand.
Inhabiting the mystery, and coming up with original strategies, poetic strategies, evocative strategies to honour that mystery is, I reckon, one of the functions of the practice of painting and probably the very reason why we bother to go to the studio every morning. That’s what, when successful, a painted image is: an evocation and a celebration of the Mystery.
AMANDA: When I imagine you two working there in Kittilä in your studio, I imagine you are somehow dancing around the canvas. How is it to paint together and to share the creative process with another person?
MISHA: Have you ever noticed that in a museum or a gallery, when you look at works of art with different people you see different things, you open up to different layers of perception and sensitivity? The company we are in makes us see different things, it makes us perceive differently. So, the same happens when painting with someone else. Painting with Raisa allows me to tap into parts of myself I would not have access to in different circumstances. Painting with her makes me a kind of entity that I couldn’t be otherwise. It is true to say that we make paintings none of us could have ever dreamt of doing individually.
RAISA: And we have many ways of painting together. Often, we have a plan that we follow to a certain point, after which the painting itself begins to show the way. When working on a larger painting with enough space, we can paint simultaneously, improvising a lot, each following our own impulses, while listening to each other and the messages from the painting. An inner knowing comes and tells us which colour to choose and mix, how to apply it, whether to use a particular brush or if I should spread the paint on the canvas with my fingers. Sometimes, we dart around each other, adding paint here and there, almost like dancing. It’s a bit like a jazz jam session. Painting is, in many ways, about listening and responding.
At other times, we work on pieces alternately, with only one of us in the studio at a time. Later, the other picks up where the first one left off. Or we work on separate pieces simultaneously in the same space. At times, we pause, comment, and discuss what’s happening on the canvas. Or we remain silent and progress through the painting like gliding on a ski trail.
MISHA: And sharing the creative process has many advantages! For one thing, we can do more work in less time because it is two of us. It feels great when you are washing dishes at home, and you know that the painting is going forward in the studio without you being there. Of course, that takes a considerable amount of trust.
AMANDA: What is the space you are creating in your work? Or more specifically, what is the space you are painting in this Lapin piha exhibition? Where did this space come from? When looking at your earlier works, I somehow feel that there is some shared space already which continues with the new Lapin piha exhibition works. It is hard to describe what it is, but I feel there are several (often paradoxical) feelings inside your works. And that feels really interesting and good.
MISHA: We have done paintings where the characters gather in a laavu, or a sauna, or a cabin, or a forest, spaces that are familiar to us. Ours is a highly subjective take on the landscape. We all perceive the landscape differently, and so we capitalise on those personal interactions, on the intimate perceptions and connections we have with the landscape. In Lapin piha, sure, you see our surrounding landscapes with traces of human activity, which are so pictorial — things being stored, forgotten, abandoned — they might even look hilarious at times.
RAISA: I indeed draw a great deal of inspiration from the landscapes of my childhood. I’ve also travelled the world and lived in other parts of Finland, as well as abroad for stretches, before moving back to Lapland. The northern landscape has always been incredibly important and dear to me — a landscape of the soul. Living surrounded by nature, amidst the trees, the landscape naturally becomes part of our paintings.
Misha’s way of observing the landscapes of Lapland has given me a new perspective on how to see the environment and experience the seasons. Especially the in-between seasons, not particularly appreciated by many, by the way. Thickets, willow groves, and all kinds of shrubbery have started to appear more interesting, their grey and brownish tones, during the times before snow arrives, and in May just after it melts.
MISHA: Interesting you (Amanda) mention the word paradox, because it is really important and fertile ground for us. I believe the truth to be always ultimately clear and paradoxical. It is through paradox that one can gently hold different, and apparently divergent aspects of reality at once. Lack of paradoxical intelligence may lead to simplistic, one-sided truths, which we call beliefs. When a dose of paradox is present, dichotomies tend to fall apart and life activates.
In the case of Lapin piha, I don’t think we are just trying to make value statements within the old antithesis between built-up, human landscape vs. the natural, pure scenery, even though both elements are distinctively present. There are artists doing much-needed and very elegant work about it already. Rather, we are maybe expressing here our sympathy –our tenderness even– for our human clumsiness, alongside a profound devotion we feel for the northern nature. For us, these works might be a way to put forward a larger vision of Nature, one that embraces and transcends that antithesis.
AMANDA: I read this book “Painting Beyond Itself” which I had with me in Kittilä and artist Julie Mehretu wrote there about painting “Improvisation can be a radical possibility. Painting as performative time” and “The Painting is performance (in making and seeing/looking)”. I really liked the notion of improvisation, which I guess is also a big part of your work? Do you see painting partly as a performance? For me looking at a painting is a totally different process than looking at a performance.
MISHA: I have been giving some thought to this recently. At the beginning, it is important for us to have an idea, an idea exuding vitality, which sets the general orientation of the project, of the painting. And then, when you are actually working on it, you can be flexible and open to different directions, listen to what the moment is asking, where lies the clearest resonance and vitality. So you cannot do without an idea, but in a way, it’s just the spark to get us going. The real substance crops up in the making. There is, of course, a push and pull, and lots of trial and error involved. And so improvisation, being awake to the impulse of the moment, plays a major part.
I have been, for a long time, interested in painting with an audience. I think the act of painting, when it flows, when it goes well (which is not all the time!) is soo beautiful. It would be so alluring just to watch, just to witness. I hope I, or we, will have some opportunity to do that in the near future. In Australia, I have worked with musicians, painting while they played music. It was fun and full-on. The thing with painting is that it usually is a delayed means of communication. You do your thing there in the sanctuary of your studio, mostly alone, and the transmission happens –if it happens– later on, when someone takes the painting in. It’s like listening to a recorded studio album, which can also be fantastic, by all means. However, I’d love to have both: the studio album and the live gig.
RAISA: For me, words like spaciousness, joy, connectedness with what is, presence, state of flow, come forth when talking about improvising. It is a force that I am very much drawn to in my life, I think since I was a little girl. Maybe it got a bit lost on the way at some point in the midst of my adult life. Thank God I found painting again! I have a strong motivation and yearning to reconnect with that playful, free energy. By painting, it is possible to summon that force and get in touch with the natural intelligence that lurks in all of us, and shines through us. Painting together with another person that you trust can also give you access to that relaxed, joyous space.
AMANDA: Finally, how is it to be a contemporary artist based in Lapland in 2024?
MISHA: It is great! I think it is really good. We are very happy to be part of the contemporary art scene in Lapland. I think Raisa is very proud of coming from Lapland, and that becomes contagious. She always makes sure that people understand we are coming from Lapland (laughs). There are really interesting things going on here in the north, for instance a sense of community shaped by long distances and a commanding presence of nature, and the mutual interest and collaborations with other northern areas, in particular northern Sweden and northern Norway.
This is all quite recent to us. It was only in 2019 that we became part of the Artist’s Association of Lapland, and almost immediately became members of its Board, where I have been involved since. That’s when we started to meet people in Rovaniemi and other parts of Lapland. Before that, the five first years I was here, we were practically on our own, doing our thing in Kittilä.
RAISA: The artist community in Lapland is very important to us—our colleagues, friends—and so it is its nature. Just knowing that our colleagues are there is a big thing. It feels like Lapland is the place to be; there are opportunities for collaboration, plenty of energy, peace for creating, and the ever-present natural scenery with its forests, fields, rivers and fells. For us, Lapland is also a great springboard for reaching international audiences. Nowadays, it’s quite easy to build connections online. Being this far north doesn’t mean one is missing out—quite the opposite.
R&M Jam Session
Professor and Art Critic Francisco Javier San Martín
According to a classic definition by critic George Frazier, Jam Session refers to 'an informal get-together of musicians with temperamental affinity to play, for their own amusement, a music not written, nor rehearsed'. It could be argued, that the music they play, which basks in the very desire of making it, is alien to the idea of an organised project. The activity becomes an opportunity, a mouthful of shared humility, that turns the individual ego a bit more transparent. To collaborate is to lower one's own expectations for a particular outcome, to open up and learn from others. Raisa Raekallio and Misha del Val have been making their pictures as a duet in Lapland for several years now, following similar principles to those of a jam session, in white quilted lands, like in the black Harlem.
I had a chance to enjoy a fruit of this collaboration, entrusted at my place for some months: it portrays, in a modest formal, a wild beast, perhaps a dog or a bear, in a combination of golden ochres and gelid blues; with that cold light that seems to come in through all the chinks, which reveal the painting has been created near snow. Beyond the animal appearance, the term that came into my mind, the first time I saw it in a bar in Bilbao, was incandescent; as if possessed by an emotional fever, sort of when the temperature of iron reaches such heights that the burning reds give way to an almost glacial white. And also the idea that painting is heated desire, even when practised in extreme temperatures: a longing to repeat what is loved, be it a feral creature that looks straight at you, the mask of a red-lipped goddess, or bodies travelling through constellations with stars in their ankles. I've returned the painting to its authors and now the audience can appreciate it in this exhibition at Torre de Ariz, draw their own conclusions, and maybe tremble before the animal they see on the image and possibly have within, without even knowing it.
R&M´s creative process is generated by a three-sided love relationship: between the artists themselves, and between the couple and painting. The seduction processes, which occur in this fertile territory of exchange, crystallises in jointly made pictures. A palette to mix the colours, a table for food, a wooden house to live in and work. As we know, love involves commitment: in this case, not only to the dainty mechanisms of the blossoming picture, but also to the shared thrust, force, motivation that drives the artists to keep wanting to make painting. In this mental and physical shared space, the studio isn't just a working place, it becomes a condominium for conspiratorial intimacy. Ray and Charles Eames had the privilege of building their own house, the place where they would live and produce all their work in collaboration for decades. Maybe that’s the highest an artist couple can aspire to. Aino Marsio and her husband Alvar Aalto, in a closer context to where the paintings in this exhibition have been made, opened In Helsinki the Artek shops to commercialise the products of their work: a rational, as much as emotional, collaboration.
R&M continue the saga painting galactic refugees, figures belonging to no homeland, sheltered in golden space blankets, gently glowing like the arctic midnight sun. Vulnerable and dignified, exposed and solemn, packed together with a stunned gaze, that reflects their long journey, R&M may have an inkling it's them, lost in the immensity of the world and found again by the fireplace in a corner of their studio. Through Skype Raisa explains, while painting these beings she feels compassion and needs to nurture it and paint it only through improvisation, responding moment to moment to what crops up on the picture: if she feels bounded by the idea of a project, this energy of empathy with the characters gets blocked and the magic vanishes into thin air. Misha in turn, she adds, tends to be more reflective over each stage of the process, and she feels comfortable with this share of responsibilities. Indeed, a jam session does not imply the dissolution of the personalities of the members involved, but precisely a sharper definition of each’s potentialities in the common flow, the destiny of the music they are making.
According to a classic definition by critic George Frazier, Jam Session refers to 'an informal get-together of musicians with temperamental affinity to play, for their own amusement, a music not written, nor rehearsed'. It could be argued, that the music they play, which basks in the very desire of making it, is alien to the idea of an organised project. The activity becomes an opportunity, a mouthful of shared humility, that turns the individual ego a bit more transparent. To collaborate is to lower one's own expectations for a particular outcome, to open up and learn from others. Raisa Raekallio and Misha del Val have been making their pictures as a duet in Lapland for several years now, following similar principles to those of a jam session, in white quilted lands, like in the black Harlem.
I had a chance to enjoy a fruit of this collaboration, entrusted at my place for some months: it portrays, in a modest formal, a wild beast, perhaps a dog or a bear, in a combination of golden ochres and gelid blues; with that cold light that seems to come in through all the chinks, which reveal the painting has been created near snow. Beyond the animal appearance, the term that came into my mind, the first time I saw it in a bar in Bilbao, was incandescent; as if possessed by an emotional fever, sort of when the temperature of iron reaches such heights that the burning reds give way to an almost glacial white. And also the idea that painting is heated desire, even when practised in extreme temperatures: a longing to repeat what is loved, be it a feral creature that looks straight at you, the mask of a red-lipped goddess, or bodies travelling through constellations with stars in their ankles. I've returned the painting to its authors and now the audience can appreciate it in this exhibition at Torre de Ariz, draw their own conclusions, and maybe tremble before the animal they see on the image and possibly have within, without even knowing it.
R&M´s creative process is generated by a three-sided love relationship: between the artists themselves, and between the couple and painting. The seduction processes, which occur in this fertile territory of exchange, crystallises in jointly made pictures. A palette to mix the colours, a table for food, a wooden house to live in and work. As we know, love involves commitment: in this case, not only to the dainty mechanisms of the blossoming picture, but also to the shared thrust, force, motivation that drives the artists to keep wanting to make painting. In this mental and physical shared space, the studio isn't just a working place, it becomes a condominium for conspiratorial intimacy. Ray and Charles Eames had the privilege of building their own house, the place where they would live and produce all their work in collaboration for decades. Maybe that’s the highest an artist couple can aspire to. Aino Marsio and her husband Alvar Aalto, in a closer context to where the paintings in this exhibition have been made, opened In Helsinki the Artek shops to commercialise the products of their work: a rational, as much as emotional, collaboration.
R&M continue the saga painting galactic refugees, figures belonging to no homeland, sheltered in golden space blankets, gently glowing like the arctic midnight sun. Vulnerable and dignified, exposed and solemn, packed together with a stunned gaze, that reflects their long journey, R&M may have an inkling it's them, lost in the immensity of the world and found again by the fireplace in a corner of their studio. Through Skype Raisa explains, while painting these beings she feels compassion and needs to nurture it and paint it only through improvisation, responding moment to moment to what crops up on the picture: if she feels bounded by the idea of a project, this energy of empathy with the characters gets blocked and the magic vanishes into thin air. Misha in turn, she adds, tends to be more reflective over each stage of the process, and she feels comfortable with this share of responsibilities. Indeed, a jam session does not imply the dissolution of the personalities of the members involved, but precisely a sharper definition of each’s potentialities in the common flow, the destiny of the music they are making.
