Liisa Kanerva
ZOOMORPHIC
Drawings and paintings
Galleria Huuto Jätkäsaari
19 April – 4 May 2014
(Gallery in Jätkäsaari is open during Easter holidays, Good Friday – Easter Sunday 18-20 April 2014 at 12-5 pm.)
Animal symbolism has always had an important role in religions and art. In ancient mythology, gods appeared in the form of an animal. That is probably what the Greek-based word zoomorphism refers to. It also often happens in ancient stories that the gods turn a person into an animal, either as a punishment or to save them from danger.
The medieval Christian mindset had the tendency to divide the entire world into good and bad, into sheep and goats. The ancient people believed that a horse symbolized the sun and a bull symbolized the moon, while the medieval Christians saw a horse as an immoral symbol of lust. A bull, on the other hand, represented virtues – patience and strength. A cat symbolized hedonism and laziness, while a dog symbolized alertness and loyalty.
When I was a little girl, I thought that all dogs were boys and cats were girls. This exhibition shows how a girl cat has turned into a woman. She lives alone and loves to stay at home. She is hardworking and clean. Giraffes and zebras represent nature and symbolize unexpected problems. Dogs are dogs and the dear bunny is the dear bunny.
My pictures are a reminder that humans are also animals, even though they have tried to get rid of their animal characteristics for centuries with the help of education and sophistication. An animal, however, is not a human even though their appearance and behavior sometimes seems to have plenty of human-like characteristics.
Artist Liisa Kanerva loves to draw. She often produces a series with a few works based on the same theme as well as characters that combine animal and human characteristics. Her fondness for comic strips and surrealism as well as her background in Renaissance art research sometimes affects her choice of themes.
Kanerva’s works are included in the collection of the Aine Art Museum as well as in the collections of the cities of Kemi and Salo.
Liisa Kanerva
liisakanerva(at)gmail.com
Tel. +358 44 331 9551
