Essi Korva (born 1985, Pello) lives and works in a former school building in Kolari. She graduated as a visual
artist from the Design and Art Institute of Lahti University of Applied Sciences in 2010, and after graduation
worked as a visual artist, a prominent sculptor.
The artworks have been created in 2021 and 2022. In 2021, Korva’s work has been supported by The Lapland
Regional Fund of the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and in 2022 the exhibition has been supported by the Arts
Promotion Centre Finland, Arts Council of Lapland.
The exhibition starts upstairs with the theme of life and goes to the themes of death, dreams and underworld
downstairs. At the end all the themes mix up with each other. The knowledge of the end of everything is what
makes it all worth living and experiencing. It makes it all unique and special and then its all wiped away. Death.
Full of mystery and forever fascinating. When will it happen? What will it feel like? What ever it is, one thing is
sure and it’s the end of the physical form as it is this moment. Everybody’s personal universe will end, at least
in this form. Because of that nothing is so serious and because of that everything is so serious.
These themes circle around in my art, it is larger than death, it is the essence of being and a little more. What
then when you no longer exist? What is it that matters then? Does anything matter? How you live? What you
leave behind? Destruction or love? It does matter, what kind of a world you leave behind.
It is hard to verbalize these emotions and matters that I handle in my art. It is impossible to put into words
what I mean. Therefore, I describe with paintings and sculptures, what I can’t say.
At the studio the unconscious and conscious meet, dreams become reality and reality turns in to dreams. I
disappear and forget the time. Where was I? Who was I? Was I anyone or was I everyone? Am I now or have I
always been, is it all now, or has everything, that will be, already been, is it all one reality overlapping?
I fell in to the beyond and came back, come see what I found, fall with me.