Josefina Nelimarkka

(Finnish, b. 1982)

A modern day polymath, Josefina reconciles input from arts and sciences to create a Cosmos of her own.

Paintings, sculptures, installations and texts emerge from explorations in astronomy, meteorology, mathematics, linguistics and mythology. The universe and its energetic flow are at the core of her practice and stars and planets a continuous source of inspiration.

Josefina often uses light-sensitive colour techniques which she times to and aligns with astronomical events and co-ordinates to produce unique records of these conditions. For instance, Dragon Luck’s rich, vibrant hues were created, processed, and developed on silk while Mars was in opposition to the Sun.

Concomitant of the least mentioned uses a microscopic image of pigment (captured with an electron microscope at Imperial College’s Materials Lab) which is then printed onto silk having undergone a wet colouring process. The resulting colour is unique although the image itself is black and white as there is no colour inside the pigment.  The microscopic detail is oddly reminiscent of a cloud, a shape that Josefina is particularly drawn to as she equates it with an accumulation of ideas.

“As an artist, I see myself as a note-taker: I record or write down the eventuality around me as a material or sometimes textual process and then translate it into spaces and topography the viewer can experience. I am interested in instabilities; fleeting moments that one seizes.”

Josefina is a graduate of the Royal College of Art, Wimbledon College of Art and the Academy of Fine Art in Helsinki.