• Emma Helle

    I Dream of Spring
  • I Dream of Spring
  • My Dream of Sonia Delaunay
  • Pasolinin kentauri / Pasolini's Centaur

Biography

Born in Stockholm, 1979 | Lives and works in Helsinki

Emma Helle is a Finnish sculptor who casts the spotlight on the marginalized creatures, usually relegated to secondary status in art history. She portrays cherubs and feminine sprites in the starring role, as active agents. Relaxed, unpretentious, and generous in her style of portrayal, she lends soft, curvaceous shapes to the feminine bodies with a breadth and richness of expression that evokes canonical works from art history. Throughout the ages, there have always been specific conventions that have dictated the portrayal of the human body, a legacy that Helle addresses through a dual lens of art history and corporeality.

Emma Helle is a graduate of the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts. Her work is represented in many private and public collections, including the State Art Collection, the Helsinki Art Museum HAM, and the Pro Artibus collection. She has had several solo exhibitions, including the Turku Art Museum, and she has taken part in group exhibitions at the Mänttä Art Festival, Kunsthalle Helsinki, and the Espoo Museum of Modern Art EMMA, Finland.

The embellished characters are each unique and expressive, and exuding an air of opulence, mischievousness and confidence. Freed from their previous secondary status, they are seemingly reveling in the spotlight. The chosen medium itself which the artist has consistently worked with for years, also bears a certain significance.

Emma Helle, 2010s ©Photo, Atelier Helle

Exhibitions

Museum and single exhibitions (selection)

2017
Gallery ARTag, Helsinki
Turku Art Museum, studio

2010
UNTITLED. Art Fair, Miami (curated by Aura Seikkula)

2014
Gallery Forum Box, Helsinki (with Paavo Halonen)

2012
Gallery Sculptor, Helsinki

2011
Gallery Sinne, Helsinki