Emma Sarpaniemi is not shy about where she finds her inspiration: with Self-portrait as Cindy, 2022, she connects her photographic series “Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower,” 2021– , with the self-portraits of Cindy Sherman. Like the American artist, Sarpaniemi redirects the conventional gaze that would objectify a woman’s body, shifting the emphasis onto performance and play.
Originally from Helsinki, Sarpaniemi studied photography at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague. She emerged on the Finnish contemporary art scene a couple of years ago with group portraits in which all the sitters look eerily alike. “Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower” parlays such visual similarities into a sense of intimacy. Sarpaniemi has staged the settings of her portraits to resemble domestic environments reminiscent of children’s corners or other spaces of play. In each, the mise-en-scène seems to correspond to, and even pun on, Sarpaniemi’s appearance. Polka dot, 2022, rhymes the spots on her stockings with her nipple; in Self-portrait with Alice, 2023, the artist and her camera stand appear in brightly-colored, coordinated outfits. For Cotton Candy Carpet Beater I (Tamppaaja), 2022, Sarpaniemi’s face is made up to mirror the pinkish hue of her shirt, and she has carpet beaters attached to her hands, thus reducing herself to merely a larger version of the tool (as implied by the Finnish title). Ultimately, the artist updates feminist self-portraiture by reaching toward current materialist theories that would blur the distinction between subject and object.
— Sini Mononen
