HELSINKI, FINLAND.- Kunsthalle Helsinki presents Mamma Andersson. Karin Mamma Andersson is one of the most renowned contemporary artists in Sweden. She had her international breakthrough in the Venice Biennale in 2003 and was awarded the prestigious Carnegie Art Award in 2006. The Helsinki Festival brings to the Kunsthalle the Karin Mamma Andersson retrospective arranged by the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. The exhibition comprises approximately 50 paintings, most of them quite recent. This is the first time the artist's canon has been exhibited this extensively in Finland.

Karin Mamma Andersson's paintings seem to be filled with familiar everyday things, interiors, landscapes and human figures, but their atmosphere is strange, inexplicable, even unnerving. The original choice of subjects in her works arises from the world of dreams, myths and art. "Snares and mines - in the midst of the familiar," writes the Director of the Moderna Museet Lars Nittve in the exhibition catalogue.

Many of the works on show at the Kunsthalle portray spaces, people and frozen moments, as if they were psychologically charged scenes from some chamber play. Karin Mamma Andersson's characters are often lost in their thoughts and turned away from the viewer, whereas allusions in the works to other paintings and art history imbue them with a throbbing presence. The scenes in the paintings seem arrested, caught in an intermediate stage between waiting, achieving and forgetting. The images live in their own curious universe.

Karin Mamma Andersson's paintings are first and foremost about images - mental images and memories, all kinds of images without any objective reference. The dimensions of time and space are unsettled, interiors and exteriors are turned upside down, and memories and amnesia are combined. Karin Mamma Andersson's painting technique is inclusive: from soft and smooth brushstrokes to harsh and grating gestures, from thick layers of colour to runny, transparent paint. Alongside the figurative, the paintings always have an abstract level; the realistic is complemented with the surreal.

Karin Mamma Andersson (born 1962) is originally from Luleå. She studied at the Royal University College of Fine Arts (KKH) in Stockholm in 1986-1993 and currently lives and works in Stockholm. She has had several solo exhibitions in Sweden, London and New York and her work has appeared in numerous international group exhibitions. The current exhibition is the most extensive exhibition of the artist's work thus far. After Helsinki, the exhibition will travel to Camden Art Centre in London. The exhibition curator was Ann-Sofi Noring from the Moderna Museet, Stockholm.

A comprehensive book entitled Mamma Andersson with articles (in Swedish and English) by Ann-Sofi Noring, Kim Levin, Midori Matsui and Thomas Tidholm has been published to coincide with the exhibition. The book also contains a discussion between the playwright Lars Norén and Karin Mamma Andersson which took place in the artist's studio in 2006 (published by Steidl & Moderna Museet, 2007). The price during the exhibition is €39.