Emma Sarpaniemi on Costume, Color, and the Camera’s Gaze
Emma Sarpaniemi, Orange Moon (2024). Archival pigment print on dibond. Ed. 1/5 + 2 AP. 125 cm x 100 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Helsinki Contemporary.
In her whimsical, vibrant self-portraits, Finnish artist Emma Sarpaniemi creates images that feel at once familiar and uncannily strange. Using costumes sourced from flea markets and evoking childhood playgrounds as visual inspiration, her work moves between memory, humor, and subtle subversion. Sarpaniemi’s solo exhibition, Snake Lifter, recently on view at Helsinki Contemporary, deepens her engagement with questions of identity, womanhood, and the gaze, playing with symbols of innocence, domesticity, and absurdity. In this interview, Sarpaniemi discusses self-portraiture as a form of performance, how she sees herself through the camera, and the quiet power of colors and props.
Xuezhu Jenny Wang: Your recent show, Snake Lifter, just wrapped at Helsinki Contemporary. What does the title mean?
Emma Sarpaniemi: The title Snake Lifter came from a self-portrait I took while lifting a toy snake—something I found at a flea market. But it also became a kind of metaphor. I was thinking about how snakes shed their skin regularly, and that felt like a useful way to describe my own artistic process. I don’t reinvent myself with each work, but I do feel like the images form a kind of new skin—an evolving surface through which I understand myself.
Emma Sarpaniemi, Spring Green (2025). Lambda print on dibond, framed. Ed. 1/5 + 2 AP. 28 cm x 35 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Helsinki Contemporary.
XJW: Playfulness and fairy tale imagery seem to recur in your work. Where does that come from?
ES: A lot of it started when I began going to flea markets and finding old toys, tents, props—things with color and texture that sparked something intuitive in me. I don’t create an alter ego in my photos; I see myself in all of them. But I like how props allow me to blur reality and imagination. Being in Iceland last year, I became obsessed with playgrounds—their colors and also the idea that play is spatially restricted. That weird tension brought me back to my own childhood memories and how I now use playfulness as a kind of power.
XJW: Do you see your photo sets as a kind of playground?
ES: In a way, yes. But more so, I think of self-portraiture itself as a playground. It’s a space of freedom where I make the rules. I get to decide how I want to be seen, which is something especially powerful for women, I think. The camera becomes a tool I control instead of something that controls me. It’s joyful, especially when I'm shooting with a friend who’s assisting. There's this dynamic of play even behind the camera.
Installation view of Emma Sarpaniemi: Snake Lifter. Courtesy of the artist and Helsinki Contemporary.
XJW: Your photos often involve costumes, but you’ve said you’re not taking on a persona. Can you clarify what that means?
ES: Yes, I’m not role-playing. When I’m dressed up, I’m still me. What matters to me is the gaze—how I’m looking at the viewer and how the viewer looks back. In some of the recent works, I noticed after the fact that I looked sad or angry, even though I wasn’t trying to perform those emotions. Each portrait becomes a mirror—sometimes emotional, sometimes humorous. I’m always present, even if what I’m wearing is strange or surreal.
XJW: There’s a sense of humor, sometimes executed through phallic imagery, in your work. Is that intentional?
ES: I’m interested in this tension between playfulness, sexuality, and the body. Like the photo with the baguette, that wasn’t meant to be sexual. I just thought it was funny. But later, I read Susan Sontag and Miranda July writing about how cameras are often described in phallocentric terms—as weapons, even. That resonated. Sometimes I realize afterward how the work reflects these ideas I’ve subconsciously absorbed. It’s not about being provocative; it’s about pushing symbols to a point where they shift meaning.
I don’t see myself sexually in the photos, but I know others might. I try to work right at that edge where an image might feel sexual but isn’t hyper-sexualized. It’s more about troubling the image, making it difficult to categorize. For example, the photo Ohjus, which means “weapon” in Finnish, shows me with a pencil and ballet shoes. There are phallic suggestions, sure, but it’s also about writing, femininity, and creative power. I try to balance humor and subversion, not to strip the image of meaning but to open it up.
Emma Sarpaniemi, Ohjus (2025). Lambda print on dibond, framed. Ed. 1/5 + 2 AP. 35 cm x 28 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Helsinki Contemporary.
XJW: You mentioned earlier that you began with collaborative portraits before focusing on yourself. What drew you to self-portraiture?
ES: I’ve always photographed friends and family—there’s something really intimate about that exchange. But when I was studying at KABK in the Netherlands, I started experimenting with video and performance to explore identity. Eventually, I did a project with my ex-partner where we dressed alike and photographed ourselves together. That blurred our identities in a way that felt powerful. From there, self-portraiture became a natural extension, especially when I realized I could create those intimate dynamics even when working alone.
XJW: What's your relationship like to images of yourself?
ES: I think you’re always chasing your image. You never really catch it. You’re constantly mirroring yourself: how you look, who you are, and how others see you. My work is an attempt to understand identity, femininity, and gender roles, but I don’t think I’ll ever find a fixed answer. And that’s okay. The not-knowing is what keeps me going.
XJW: Let’s talk about color—your work is full of bold primaries, but you mentioned that you're recently working with more muted tones. What changed?
ES: Color is always the first thing I think about when making an image. I love how colors vibrate against each other, how they “tickle the retina.” Recently, I started working with more earth tones, inspired in part by 19th-century paintings. It’s been an interesting challenge to shift my visual language without losing what feels like me.
Emma Sarpaniemi, An Attempt to Become a Mountain II (2024). Archival pigment print on dibond. Ed. 1/5 + 2 AP. 125 cm x 100 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Helsinki Contemporary.
Emma Sarpaniemi is currently working on an artist book, set to be released soon, with Disko Bay Publishing.
