Juha Joro: Landscapes of Hidden Light

Juha Joro has had a long and distinguished career as a visual artist, and in recent years he has worked with photography. He is especially known for his atmospheric works, which deal with themes concerning the passage of time and experiencing silence. In the Studio, you will now find new works from 2024 created with infrared photography, with soft tones and a dreamlike atmosphere that evokes the mystique of abandoned places. The cycle of life is also present in them; time, the journey and the change.

Infrared photography is a method that uses a filter to limit the wavelength of the light that reaches the film or the digital camera sensor. The filter allows only infrared light, invisible to the human eye, to pass through. The result is fascinating, mysterious and sometimes very dramatic. The monochromatic and black-and-white style characteristic of Joro distils the subject to its essence, the dialogue between light and shadow. Significant details in the landscape are also revealed: a tree that bends over the path like an arched gateway leading to the room of the forest, and a nearby rotting trunk stretches out its branches, like a guide into the unknown. Joro often returns to photograph the same places in different seasons and times of the day. The movement of light and shadow is slow yet constantly shifting, and the right moment often takes its time.

Juha Joro (b. 1957, Helsinki) currently lives and works in Halikko, and has worked as a visual artist for forty years. His means of expression have included mixed media drawing, printmaking, and, during the last two decades, photography-based methods. Joro has significantly influenced the field of visual arts in Finland, not only as an artist but also as a teacher in printmaking at the Turku Arts Academy, the chairperson of the Turku Printmakers Association, a member of the boards of the Association of Finnish Printmakers and the Turku Art Association. He currently also runs his own gallery in Halikko.

In 2022, Joro received the Dahlström Eminentia lifetime achievement award from the Turku Art Society, in recognition of the significance of his extensive body of work, his evolving artistic practice, and his ongoing active career as an artist. His contributions as a teacher have had a profound influence on the younger generation of artists in Turku, while his various roles in organisations and positions of trust have shaped the status of the Finnish artist community as a whole. The Dahlström Eminentia award, amounting to 15 000 euros and awarded every three years from the Åbo Akademi University Foundation’s Ellen and Magnus Dahlström Fund. The prize also includes an exhibition in the Studio at Turku Art Museum.

juhajoro.fi

The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Heritage Agency and the Turku Art Society.