Sandra Kantanen

Inspired by Chinese landscape painting, Sandra Kantanen digitally processes her photographs to produce dreamlike tableaux of softly dappled, slightly blurry prospects of forests, meadows full of flowers, and lakes. They are aesthetic excursions into a world of illusion oscillating between painting and photography. The pictures in More Landscapes were taken in a wood in the south of Finland, where landmines were buried during the war. As a reminder of the history of the site, Kantanen tosses small, colorful smoke bombs before shooting photographs. The motifs are then processed with a digital brush, creating various layers that the viewer can only decipher upon closer inspection. On one hand, the pictures recall the past, but they also raise questions about the nature of photography and the construction of landscape. Sandra Kantanen (*1974, Helsinki) studied photography at the Aalto University in Helsinki and Chinese painting in Beijing. Her award-winning work has been seen in many international exhibitions. In 2017 Karl Lagerfeld selected her work to include in the highlights of Paris Photo.