Anna Reivila: Bond Series

Purdy Hicks Gallery is pleased to present Anna Reivilä’s first solo exhibition in the gallery and in the UK. The exhibition will feature photographic works from her series Bond: a study of the landscape through the act of binding and associating natural elements.

According to Japanese religious ceremonies, ropes and ties symbolize the connections among people and the divine: a means to identify sacred space and time. Inspired by Nobuyoshi Araki's images and their mixture of raw violence, beauty and the nature of bondage, Reivila’s photographs study the relationship between man and nature.

Anna Reivila writes, “The Japanese word for bondage, kinbaku-bi, literally means “the beauty of tight binding”. It is a delicate balance between being held together and being on the verge of breaking. I search spaces where elements combine to create interesting natural tensions and continue this dialogue through my interpretations by extending, wrapping and pulling upon these indigenous forms. I create a new sense of volume from these existing components. Using ropes as lines is my form of drawing. The lines create interactions, making connections between the elements. These three-dimensional drawings are physically unstable: they exist only for the moment. By recording the process, the photograph becomes part of the piece.
Robert Smithson installed 12-inch-square mirrors on the site of his project Yucatan Mirror Displacements 1969. The mirrors reflected and refracted the surrounding environment and gave a new angle to see the landscape. In a similar tradition to Smithson’s use of mirrors, my lines show how shapes of the elements and the connections between them become visible when something alien is added. I’m not only changing their essence, but also my own point of view. Every space is different, and I’m interested in how the volume of any given site can be stretched with the use of several simple lines’.

Anna Reivilä (b. 1988, Helsinki) is a land artist and photographer living and working in Porvoo, Finland. Reivilä studies for her MA at the Aalto University, School of Art and Design in Helsinki.