Elina Brotherus is one of the most recognized contemporary artists from Scandinavia. Brotherus’ art has been alternating between autobiographical and art historical approaches. Her early series on subjective experiences gave way to works dealing with the human figure and the landscape, the relation of the artist and the model. In her current practice she is revisiting Fluxus event scores and other written instructions for performance-oriented art of the 1950s-70s. Another recent theme is architecture: Brotherus photographs in private houses designed by important architects, taking roles of various imagined characters. Her tranquil presence breaths life into these iconic spaces of architectural heritage.
Elina Brotherus lives and works in Helsinki, Finland and Avallon, France. She has an MA degree in Photography from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now Aalto University) and an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Helsinki. She has been awarded, among others, the Artist Professorship Grant of the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (2022-2026), Carte blanche PMU, France (2017), the Finnish State Prize for Photography (2008), and the Prix Niépce of Gens d’image (2005). Her works are in over 80 public collections including the Pompidou Centre, Paris, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark, LACMA, Los Angeles, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Elina Brotherus started exhibiting internationally in 1997. Recent solo exhibitions include Brotherus Block Beuys, Museum Schloss Moyland, Bedburg-Hau; Visitor, Didrichsen Art Museum, Helsinki; Large de vue, ARTER, Istanbul (2023); Dialogue, Finnish National Gallery Ateneum; In Reference to a Sunny Place, Fotografie Forum Frankfurt (2022); Why not?, Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, Bremen (2020); Playground, Férnan Gómez, Madrid (2019) and Serlachius Museums, Mänttä, Finland (2018); It’s Not Me, It’s A Photograph, Kunst Haus Wien, Vienna (2018); Règle du jeu, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2017). Brotherus has participated in group shows in institutions such as Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; Biennale of Sydney; Brooklyn Museum; Istanbul Biennial; LACMA, Los Angeles; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark; MAXXI, Rome; National Art Center, Tokyo and the Photographers’ Gallery, London.
Elina Brotherus has received several awards for her 15 monographs. Most recently she published Brotherus Block Beuys (Museum Schloss Moyland and Kehrer Verlag 2023/2024), Visitor (Didrichsen Art Museum, Helsinki 2023), Sebaldiana. Memento mori (self-published, 2022) and Seabound. A Logbook (Kehrer Verlag 2021).
Galleries:
Martin Asbaek Gallery, Copenhagen
camara oscura galeria de arte, Madrid
Instagram: @elinabrotherus
“Art follows life. As an art student in the 1990s, I used my personal experiences as the starting point for my work. I put an end to my previous (science) studies as well as to my first marriage. This sudden liberation became visible in my images. After moving abroad I became interested in the iconography and the methods of expression in painting. I continued to use myself as a model, but now I was an image-maker instead of an autobiographer. As I approached forty, autobiography crept back in through the back door. It wasn’t planned, but I did not refuse it either. My strategy as an artist is to accept the images that need to happen. Since I have no children, I am always the youngest one in the family. This allows for playfulness and freedom, qualities that I appreciate more and more as I get older. I don’t have to represent the traditional way of being a woman. I can give a middle finger to the norm. (Elina Brotherus, 2022)”