My Barbie realness is a gentle story about tenderness, midsummer and longing. The exhibition features paintings and drawings.
The reference for the title piece of the show, My Barbie realness, was a 90s toy magazine advertisement about Barbie sitting on the edge of a bathtub. The painting is charged with meanings of physicality and transience.
I think of the sheet that glowed as a blindingly white portal between us and something else. And yet my eyes discerned in it vascular wrinkles and folds that did not iron out, although our clammy palms forced the fibers demandingly in opposite directions.
The sheet was not just a piece of thin cotton textile but a plan of something Greater.
I ran a semi-dry felt-tip pen on the flattened textile, which left behind a weak line and braked in the waves formed by the thin cotton. Once again, I moistened the tip with my tongue and thought of the ice-cream green rooftop of the Deluxe Dreamhouse.
And then I revived the felt-tip pen for its final journey.
Juliana Hyrri is a visual artist from Helsinki who makes paintings, contemporary comics, and drawings. She has exhibited her works widely in Finland and internationally and published two award-winning graphic novels. Hyrri's works are, among others, in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Aineen Kuvataidesaätiö, Nelimarkka Fund and HUS.
Photo: Tuure Leppänen