The exhibition, Shade into Shade, will contrast work from two series by Jorma Puranen. During a Residency at Harewood House to celebrate the tercentenary of the great landscape designer, Capability Brown, Jorma Puranen photographed Harewood's landscape and lake, one of Brown's most significant contributions. Long exposures were taken, mirrored in a painted board prepared by the artist, resulting in painterly, fragmented impressions of nature in which the ground, the brushstroke, and the reflection are inseparably superimposed.
In contrast to this carefully considered and quintessentially English landscape is Puranen's Icy Prospect series. Here the artist demonstrates his deep fascination for and knowledge of the wilderness of the Arctic, creating a relationship between the philosophical concept of the 'sublime terror' of the forces of nature and his own experience of life in these regions. Puranen constructs a dialogue between early 20th Century paintings of the Arctic Landscape and his own photographs taken in Lappland and northern Scandinavia in which light is seen reflected in painted boards.
Puranen's distinguished career has included a tenure as Professor of Photography at the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Helsinki.and many international solo exhibitions, together with work held in major museum collections. .
