Maria Sorjonen
About the Artist
Maria Sorjonen (b. 1994, Lappeenranta) works primarily with painting and sculpture. Her practice is based on an archive composed of found materials as well as family photographs. In her paintings, she explores the fragmentary nature of memory, speculative memories, the experience of being in nature, and the periphery.
Exhibitions
BFA Exhibition 2026
11 Sept–11 Oct Kuva/Tila
About the artwork
Beyond the Meadow
About 70 years ago, an old Finnhorse was spending its retirement days in eastern Finland. The horse pastured in Niitynperä, in a meadow bordered by barbed wire running from one birch tree to another. One morning, the horse did not arrive at the fence, as was its habit. The neighbours, Oiva and Viljo, set out to look for it with shovels on their shoulders. The horse was buried right where it was found in the alder grove. Who knows what else is buried in the meadow.
Today, the birches have grown large, and the barbed wire cuts deep into them. Father and I felled alder trees and I burned the wood in the sauna stove. I collected the ash and the small pieces of charcoal left within it. I saved only the finest ash and ground the charcoal into dust.
I have also sculpted these same alders. A horse, or parts of it.
Part of the artwork Colder Winds is painted with the ash and charcoal of the Niitynperä alders, along with oil paint I made from sand gathered from the pinewoods of Lieksa. From a logging site or a rut torn open by a forestry machine. There are many of those in the east.
In this body of work, I have been interested in the cycle of matter, natural materials, and the combination of different sources and memories. In creating new narratives.