Susnna Majuri represented by Galerie ADLER

Susanna Majuri

Susanna Majuri’s work belongs to the Nordic photographic school. Majuri (b. 1978) graduated in 2007 from the University of Art and Design in Helsinki, where the so-called Helsinki School was established. In a clearly picturesque fashion, here the selected photographs focus on Majuri’s main theme: water
and its all-absorbing, metaphorical dimension, ranging from mirroring effects in Fisherette to colour-field type colour zones in Save as well as blue tanker insights in Dear Sailor. In Save, figurative staging and natural space meet as multi-referenced design forms. On one side, the turquoise of the swimming pool that seems illuminated from the interior, and on the other side the warm grey tones of the sea landscape cut the picture into two large colour fields. An amorphous shadow in the pool is irritating. Here, the motionless figure crouching on the floor is less identifiable as a body than as a cloudy colour form. Its fluid-transforming consistency creates a clear contrast to the tranquil mountain massif in the background. ‘I’ and ‘Water Landscape’ converge as emotional fields, and thanks to
their connection they allow something mysterious to emerge. ‘Water is colour’, emphasises Majuri, ‘the colour turquoise – that’s what I am’. By exploiting spatial contradictions, Majuri also highlights the mysteriousness of a scene in the other two photographs: either in Fisherette, where it is no longer possible to distinguish between the inner and outer space of the aquarium, as this merges
with the bodiless view of the observer looking at the fish; or in reference to the fully clothed, suspended figure in the water tank – the woman is wearing a fashionable red-white sailor outfit. Each sets in motion another narrative as densely composed individual images. They are therefore reminiscent of still images from Hollywood films around 1970. This was the era of ‘aquamania’ when many film scenes were filmed in aquariums, swimming pools, and tanks or under water.