Valentina Gelain’s artistic practice explores the human existential condition, drawing on the landscapes and natural environment of Finland, where she currently lives and works. Her works inhabit a dreamlike dimension set within rural and natural environments and are characterised by an intimate connection with the natural world, whether emotional, conceptual, symbolic or physical. Through a wandering form of introspection, moving between primordial impulses and inner conflicts, the artist investigates the liminal spaces between the conscious and the unconscious. Her artistic research thus becomes a continuum of life itself.
A Veil of Reason over the Unconscious (2025) forms part of the multidisciplinary project The Peaks, although it can also be experienced as an independent work. Originally conceived for the fifth issue of the digital and experimental poetry magazine Kontradiktion, the video’s 2025 iteration reworks both previously unpublished and published poetic material by Gelain. A calm, measured voice recites a poem, which appears on screen alongside photographs of unspoilt landscapes, particularly those of Ostrobothnia in Finland and Bus del Buson in Italy. Words and images complement one another, creating an allusive imaginary world that opens new paths towards introspection.
The voice is accompanied by a soundscape that builds tension and punctuates its emphasis, occasionally interrupted by sounds from the natural world, such as the creaking of breaking ice. The poem investigates the imperceptible inner dynamics between multiple psychological states, asking how they interconnect and what might be reached when we move beyond the conscious state to engage actively with the unconscious.
Last Shore of Sky (2026) is a multifaceted project, represented here by a textile work created specifically for the fair. The work investigates a particular shade of the sky and the way the artist relates to and identifies with it under specific atmospheric and environmental conditions. Once again, introspection unfolds within the natural environment, becoming part of the inner dialogue already initiated in the previously mentioned poem. The fabric itself reproduces this same shade of blue.
Suspended from the ceiling, the print presents an intimate and at times almost grotesque image: a body lying motionless upon a hard, rocky surface. On the reverse, a hand-embroidered poem gives voice to the artist’s emotional state upon encountering this particular shade of sky. Two stones hang beneath the fabric, suspended by threads. Physically introduced into space, they function as relics of that experience, anchoring the image to a specific lived moment. The work depicts a moment of inner vulnerability, giving form to emotions associated with death that are marked not by fear or sadness, but by calm, fulfilment and resolution.
Valentina Gelain (b. 1992, Feltre) is a visual artist who lives and works in Ostrobothnia, Finland. Her practice explores the human existential condition, engaging with the metaphysical and immanent dynamics of being. Her works are often situated within natural landscapes. She studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, where she obtained an MA in Visual Arts in 2017.
Gelain works through a multidisciplinary approach spanning video, sculpture, installation, site-specific art, interactive art and poetry. Since 2021, she has received working grants from institutions including the Finnish Cultural Foundation, the Swedish Cultural Foundation and the Gröndahl Brothers Foundation. She is a member of the MUU Artists’ Association and is among the artists selected by AV-arkki, the Finnish archive of audiovisual art. Between 2023 and 2025, she was a visiting lecturer at Novia University. Since 2023, she has collaborated with the artist Bekim Hasaj on the development of contemporary and public art projects in rural areas.
Text by Mirta Gianocca