Erna Aaltonen

 « Les Sphères ont toujours occupé une place centrale dans mon travail. Mais pour cette deuxième exposition à la Galerie de l’Ancienne Poste, je souhaitais également montrer d’autres facettes de mon œuvre « , explains Erna Aaltonen. The harmonious roundness of the colored globes that made her reputation is now matched by the rigor of her Monoliths. But a gentle rigor. There's nothing cold or austere about the Finnish artist's vertical creations. No harsh angles, no sharp edges. Rather, a serene elegance. Perfectly balanced proportions, forms that rise up and discreetly impose their bodies in space.
Erna Aaltonen likes pure lines and her influences can be found among the fields of modern architecture and minimalist sculpture rather than ancient or contemporary ceramics Monoliths d’Erna Aaltonen pourraient sembler monochromes. Pourtant, s’ils sont dominés par une teinte principale – le blanc, le noir, le vert… -, ils révèlent peu à peu la richesse d’une palette toute en nuances, en dégradés, sans contrastes violents ni ruptures. La matérialité de la surface, dans ses jeux de lisse et de rugueux, crée des reliefs subtils, qui capturent ou renvoient la lumière. « In a way, I see the Spheres and Monoliths as three-dimensional canvases on which I can experiment with color. "explains Erna Aaltonen. [...]
Those familiar with his work will rediscover it here from a new angle. Fifteen or so Spheres interact with a group of Monoliths, some created in the early 2010s but rarely shown until now, and others, of smaller format, created especially for the occasion. The confrontation of these two large "families" allows us to appreciate the coherence of Erna Aaltonen's artistic universe - abstract sculptures with very simple volumes and lines - as well as the subtlety of her thousand and one variations in form and color.
Guillaume Morel,
journalist and art critic,
excerpts from the reference text, 2018.