Riikka Lenkkeri: Depicting Lived Life & Experiences

In May 2026, the well-known artist from Finland Riikka Lenkkeri was in Schio for an art-residency. Thanks to Valeria Bertesina I had an opportunity to spend an evening with her. Here is an edited version of my talk with her - we spoke in Italian and I have translated it into English.

You can check Riikka's artworks at her webpage and Instagram page. (Image left: Riikka working on her painting in Schio - click on the pics for a bigger view)

Introducing Riikka Lenkkeri

During 1990s, Riikka had studied art at the Academia di Belle Arti in Genova, Italy and thus speaks Italian. She now lives and works in Mänttä, about 220 km north of the national capital Helsinki, Finland. Over the last 30 years, she has participated in numerous exhibitions, won many awards and is counted among the prominent artists of Finland.

In the 19th century important paper-mills were setup in Mänttä - The Serlachius paper mill. Those paper mills are still active. Today, Mänttä is called the art city of Finland, it hosts an annual art festival, and has 2 museums – art Museum Serlachius Manor & Museum Serlachius Headquarters (museum in the G.A. Serlachius paper company building), where regular art events are organised.

Since Riikka was worried about completing her painting, we talked while she was painting and I was sitting nearby watching her and listening to her.

Her painting was huge, going from the bottom to the top of the whole wall, probably more than 3 metres tall. It had 3 figures, a central figure of a woman with her head on the cushion at the top, covered by a blanket, a male figure on her left and a third male figure, near their feet, lying accross. All the three were sleeping and the top figure was only drawn in lines.

Talking With Riikka Lenkkeri

Riikka: If you don’t mind, I will continue working while we talk. Yesterday, I spent the whole day going to and coming back from Genova, where I wanted to meet some friends. I came back late at night. Today is Saturday and on Tuesday morning I will go back to Finland, so I have little time and a lot of work to do to finish this painting.

Sunil: Sure. Let us start with the place where you live in Finland. What kind of place is it?

Riikka: Mänttä is a very small place. It has artists, museums, art festivals and art related events. It is not along the way to somewhere famous, you come to Mänttä because you want to visit it. In some ways it is like Schio, it is an industrial town, important for its paper mills. Slowly people, especially young people were leaving and going to bigger towns, but the presence of art museums and the organisation of art festivals and art related events has helped to make it known and bring some people back to live there, it has helped in bringing life to the town.

Sunil: Tell me about this painting (left). I can see that it is about sleeping persons and I know that you have already done many paintings about sleeping people. Is that because in sleep we drop our masks, we are no longer posing, we are more exposed and vulnerable?

Riikka: This painting has a mother with her two sons, all three sleeping in one bed. I am interested in exploring the corporeality of the human body in my art and especially exploring it through sleep. I like real people in my art, people who can be fat or curvy, or old and tired, people who are being themselves and not putting on a show.

I prefer using oil colours but I can also experiment. In this painting, I am using acrylic colours as well as colours that are used in buildings, I bought these here from a local shop that sells paints for buildings.

Sunil: As a child did you also go to sleep with your parents?

Riikka: Yes, I did. There were four of us. I have an elder brother, I am the second and I have two younger brothers. When we were young, all four of us wanted to be in the bed with our parents but there was place only for one of us. So the first one who managed to get in the bed, stayed there, the other three had to sleep near the bed. There were thick carpets and sleeping on them was comfortable.

I did the same with my twins. They are grown up now but when they were young, both of them used to come to sleep in our bed. As they moved so much during the night, disturbing our sleep, sometimes my husband used to get up and shift to another bed.

Sunil: Is Mänttä also the place where you grew up?

Riikka: No, my father was a doctor and he was changing towns. I was born in Lapland. Then, when I was four years old, we moved to Mänttä, my youngest brother was born there.

Sunil: You did your art studies in Academia Legustica di Belle Arti in Genova, in north-wast Italy. How did that happen?

Riikka: From my childhood, I had decided that I am going to be an artist. I completed the high school diploma in an art school. After that I absolutely wanted to study in an art school outside Finland. It was in 1990s (1990-95) and I was fortunate that during that period they were promoting students to go to other countries in Europe. I got a loan for studying in Italy and I also received other support, so I decided to study at the Academia in Genova.

The main problem was that when I arrived in Genova, I did not know Italian. I was given a room and a few months to study the language. When they examined me, I think that my Italian was still not very good but they accepted me.

There in the Academy I studied a lot of different things, including the painting techniques from  the 15th to 17th centuries.

Sunil: After completing the Academy, did you start working as an artist or you did other work? Do you remember your first artwork that you sold?

Riikka: Yes, I started to work as an artist. When I was in school, there used to be events and exhibitions where the students could showcase their artworks and I had already done plenty of it. During those exhibitions, I think that I had already sold some of my artworks, and now I don’t remember which was my first artwork that was sold.

Sunil: Tell me about your husband. I have read that he was  modelling for you, is that true?

Riikka: Actually Sampsa is a photographer and film-maker. He has modelled for me many times. Often, male artists have used female models, painting them and sometimes having relationships with them, thinking of them as their muses.

I like the idea of reversing the gaze and look at a man as my muse and to look at him as a model.

When I was studying in Genova, I used to think that I will live in Italy, I will not go back to Finland. Instead, I was in Finland and I met Sampsa and so all my plans changed. He is from Mänttä, his family was closely linked to the  Serlachius paper mill, his uncle was an engineer there, while his father was a dentist. They had this big house in  Mänttä, it was for 2 families, now we have renovated it and modified it.

(Note: On Riikka’s website, there is an interesting piece of writing by Sampsa Virkajärvi about how he feels about being seen as model and how he can observe Riikka during that process)

Sunil: How is it being married to another artist? And your children, are they also artists?

Riikka: Actually Sampsa is very good, he shares all the work at home, otherwise with two children, it would have been difficult for me to be an artist.

My twins, when they were young, they tried making all the different kinds of art, but they were not interested in being an artist. One of them is working in a factory and the other one is at university, studying mathematics.

Sunil: Tell me about your influences?

Riikka: The artist who has been the biggest influence on me is the 15th century Italian artist Piero della Francesca (1412-92). I saw two of his paintings at the national gallery in London and they had a tremendous impact on me – the Nativity and the Baptism of Christ.

In the Nativity painting, it is the figure of Joseph that interested me (below). He is an old man, sitting and looking away from the viewers, his right leg is bent at the knee and placed over his left leg and we can see the sole of his foot. When I saw it, I understood how the physicality and the position of the figure is shown, in a way that showcases deeper aspects of the figure's lived life and experiences, not in an idealised way but as an ordinary human with his body.

In the Baptism painting (below), it is the figure of the man behind who is removing his shirt. Once again, its physicality struck me.

Those two paintings had very strong influence on me. That is what I want in my work, the physicality of our human bodies and body language that gestures to more complex interpretations about the subject. 

Sunil: This explanation gives us a key to look at your work and see what you want to transmit in your art. Thanks for sharing all this information and all the time you have given me. 

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