Emmi Kallio’s Myrsky opens at Kimmo Pyykkö Art Museum with site-specific storm painting

Emmi Kallio’s Myrsky opens at the Kimmo Pyykkö Art Museum in Kangasala on Saturday 13 June 2026 and will be on view on the museum’s first and second floors through 10 January 2027. The show is curated by Veikko Halmetoja.

The exhibition brings together a large site-specific wall painting, a group of new acrylic works hung installation-style, and a series of paper pieces that merge graphics with preparatory sketches. Selected works from Kallio’s recent shows frame the presentation, offering visitors an overview of her recent output alongside the new commissions.

Kallio’s work sits close to abstract expressionism but gradually reveals figurative elements and narrative fragments. She paints with her whole body — visible in forceful brushstrokes, layers of overflowing paint and glowing colour surfaces that give the work both physical presence and emotional charge. On the subject of climate change, Kallio said: “There is something ominous in the air, literally. When it rains, it rains too much for it to feel normal. When the season changes, it changes too early, too late or too quickly. The sun’s warmth has a strange burn and heat waves come at moments when your internal clock is already telling you to put on a wool sweater. Something is badly wrong. Everything changes, everything goes strange.”

Myrsky operates as both a concrete and metaphorical title. The storm recurs as a symbol of emotional turmoil, personal crisis, creativity and social upheaval, and also of cleansing and renewal. The exhibition invites readings through the lens of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and continues concerns present in Kallio’s earlier opera-themed paintings, notably questions of illusion, reality, manipulation, power and authority.

The opening event is free and open to all on Saturday 13 June at 14:00 in the Kangasala-talo concert hall. Kangasala Classic will perform music inspired by opera, and both the curator and the artist will speak. The museum offers free admission for the whole day from 11:00 to 18:00. A publication on the exhibition will be sold in the museum shop throughout the run; it can also be pre-ordered at the opening.

The project has received a state grant from the Finnish Heritage Agency and additional support from the Björkqvist Fund, the Teemu Luoto Art Foundation and the Arts and Culture Agency. Photographs of the works and the artist are credited to Liisa Mäkinen.