Riikka Sormunen

Riikka Sormunen (b. 1987) is a Finnish artist, currently working and living in Helsinki. While she originally studied fashion design, she eventually left the course to concentrate on her work as an illustrator before becoming a full-time artist. Since then, she has taken part in countless group and solo exhibitions, as well as being awarded multiple grants to support her work, from the Arts Promotion Centre in Finland.

While Sormunen may not have gone into the world of fashion design, Sormunen’s art practice continues to draw heavily on what she learnt in her time there. She gives credit to designers such as Dries van Noten for her use of decorative motifs in her works, and combines this with influences from mid-century illustrations, Japanese woodcuts, and artists such as Klimt and Sylvia Sleigh. She has also cited the impact of Lucian Freud on her work, but for his expressive figures rather than patterns.

The impact of these various sources is visible in Sormunen's work through both the detailed floral patterns on clothes, furniture, carpeting, and how she creates her figures. They have a distinctly Freud-like feel in their actions and expressions. Often resting, their bodies spread out in naturally unnatural ways, with details creating an almost grotesque aspect to works that are, otherwise, floral and bright.

This contrast is essential to Sormunen’s practice. She balances the softer, more decorative aspects of floral furniture and female figures with more unsettling undertones. A distorted face or glass-eyed stare contrasts with the flowers surrounding them. This tension represents the balance between performativity and honesty, especially in women. By depicting beautiful women in tense, surreal, or bizarre scenarios, she reimagines them as characters with angst, anger, and madness, despite their formal and feminine backdrops.