Finnish Artists’ Association’s Artist Award speech (16th December 2023)
Saara Hacklin - PhD, Chief Curator, 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
’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, 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, 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!
R&M Jam Session
Prof. Francisco Javier San Martín - Professor, Art Critic
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.
