Elsa Salonen prepares the pigments for her works by grinding a wide variety of raw materials, such as meteorites and seashells, as well as by extracting colours from plants and algae. She views the pigments as collaborators whose ‘experiences’ define the conceptual message of each work. For example, she has used stones which are millions of years old as pigments, to depict the lost landscapes of the Carboniferous Period (Stories Told by Stones, 2018), and burned fox bones to paint a herbarium that reflects on the circle of life (Eighty Modest Statements About the Impossibility of Death, 2013). She gathered many of the materials herself at natural sites around the world, where the more unique materials are collected with the help of specialists.
Elsa Salonen (b.1984 Turku, Finland) graduated from the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna in 2008 and has been based in Berlin over the past decade. Salonen has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions with institutions including, KINDL Centre For Contemporary Art, Kunstverein Wiesbaden and Schwartzsche Villa in Germany; Art Sonje Center in South Korea; Kunsthal Aarhus and Kunsthal Viborg in Denmark and Miguel Urrutia Art Museum in Colombia. Awards have been received from Artist Grant Finland, Art Promotion Centre Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation and National Art Award, Italy and her work is held in international private and public collections, including Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art and Saastamoinen Foundation in Finland and Lissone Museum of Contemporary Art in Italy.