I promised to come back for her birthday, Gallery Helsinki Contemporary, Helsinki, Finland (2022)

Exhibition I promised to come back for her birthday was open from 14th of October to 13th of November 2022. Vuorenmaa’s new works have been influenced by her role as a mother and the resulting contradictory feelings. Reading her teenage diaries also evoked memories and through them, the meaningful action heroes of her youth became part of the theme. In the exhibition, stories and time are layered, the artist’s childhood fears and joys reflected on the now. “Painting, in the same way as life, can be frightening, and still, one wants to approach it.” In the end, it is a question of daring to let go, let the hand’s movement lead, anticipate. Last autumn, Vuorenmaa painted a series of studies of Princess Leia, one of the main characters of the Star Wars movies, portrayed by Carrie Fisher. Along with the series, her first abstraction – painted at the same time – initiated Vuorenmaa’s internal process for this exhibition. “I reminisced about my teenage sources of strength, and Ripley, the androgyne hero of my childhood films, and Princess Leia became part of my new series.”