VISUAL ART MEETS MUSIC

In Riitta Nelimarkka’s life, music has always accompanied visual art, ever since the piano studies in her youth.

In spring 2016, Riitta Nelimarkka visualized five of Claude Debussy’s preludes, played by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hannu Lintu being the conductor. During the concert, Riitta’s art was projected onto three video screens in the concert hall of the Helsinki Music Centre (Musiikkitalo).

In 2020-2021, Nelimarkka’s extensive exhibition La SCALA brought captivating color, playful movement, and abstract, charming characters, like painted with woolen yarn, to the foyer of the Helsinki Music Centre. The internal motion, rhythm, and timbre of her art also gave viewers a musical experience.

The speech delivered by Professor Pekka Mattila – then member of the Board of the Finnish National Gallery – at the opening of La SCALA takes us into the world of Riitta’s art. Here are some impressions from the speech.

“- – Riitta does not take art too solemnly. Finnish is rich on this point: serious and solemn are two different things. Taking things solemnly is always a bad sign, taking things seriously is important for success and meaning. Fortunately, Finnish gives us a chance to distinguish between the two.

– – Riitta’s art is highly inclusive – each audience member sees and experiences it in their own way. The most swiftly transient, and also the youngest, audience members see the works’ fantasy and caricatured figures. Those who stop are intrigued by the technical virtuosity of Riitta’s treatment of materials. Some get interested in her plays on words: in how skilfully humour and truth – both fun and serious – can interplay. The best-read audience members get the satisfaction of recognizing interdisciplinary references in Riitta’s works. Her own well-readness is evidenced by her numerous books, in which metaphor and allusion, along with respectful quotation, unfold.

– – The comparison with the world of Tove Jansson’s Moomin books may be overworked, but it is still apt. Jansson’s content opens out to children, teenagers and adults in different ways, and always with new meanings. Riitta achieves very much the same thing in the realm of visual expression.

Helsinki Music Centre is a perfect stage for Riitta’s works, in which content and structure are always also joined by music. The grand piano and the hare undergo a visual metamorphosis. Sound and shape converge, become one.”