“Shared”: portraits of brothers and sisters signed Nelli Palomäki

The practice of Finnish photographer Nelli Palomäki, entirely dedicated to portraiture and exclusively in black and white, combines a traditional and contemporary approach to the problems of this photographic genre. The strong artistic identity that emerges from Nelli Palomäki’s works is the result of an elaboration in which she assumes and even exploits the discomfort that comes from making a portrait.

The practice of portraiture is indeed for Nelli Palomäki a way to study time, memory, perception of oneself and others and family relationships. An observation that she pursues with one of her last series, entitled Shared, that unveils the exhibition. The artist explores all the complexity of the relationships that are formed between brothers and sisters.

The portraits of the series Shared, by the absence of place markers and by the choice of neutral clothes, are marked by a timelessness which allows a full concentration on the subjects, seized at the moment when an unease arises to be so close l one of the other. While waiting for this moment, Nelli Palomäki captures the truth of the relationship. A relationship of the most complex where love and tenderness can hide other feelings like jealousy, competition, rejection of oneself through the other …