by Lars Holdgate // Apr. 7, 2026
This article is part of our feature topic Abjection.
At Hua International, works by Marianna Uutinen, made 30 years apart, manifest and indulge in many things, of which the body is one. Though the artist herself would not necessarily use the term abject to describe the series, I consider this slippery category to offer a tempting position from which to think about Uutinen’s show, ‘Who’s Afraid of Red Stains and Yellow Snow?’
Marianna Uutinen: ‘Who’s Afraid of Red Stains and Yellow Snow,’ 2026, installation view at Hua International Berlin // Photo by Joe Clark, courtesy of the artist and Hua International
Uutinen creates her works by painting layers of acrylic on sheets of plastic. When they have dried, she peels off these plastic skins before transferring them onto a canvas. The process seems like a tango. How does the creator and their “natural self” relate to what is, as Uutinen points out, just plastic: plastic, which is used to shape “perfect” bodies that are subjected to desire and rejection at once? It is an interaction that begins with two skins trying to control one another.
In my mind, the acrylic skins float between collagen sausage casings, folds, clumps of plastic, tribal tattoos, stretchmarks, flaky tinfoil, melted clingfilm, mountain tops and a rabbit’s head. I marvel the same way I would at a crystal or a marble for the sheer random but intentional delight. I give each work its time. It’s like a language that you don’t understand: words are difficult to distinguish at first but soon, by listening, by seeing, the logic becomes clear. Form and content are matters of and for the abstract.
Marianna Uutinen: ‘Who’s Afraid of Red Stains and Yellow Snow,’ 2026, installation view at Hua International Berlin // Photo by Joe Clark, courtesy of the artist and Hua International
But rather than trying to find an association, I allow myself to be present. References and signification lose their meaning. Uutinen explains that, “[a]bstraction lends my work an ambivalence, even negation, which is a question of the abject.”
Whether intentionally or not, the medium appeals to a particular tradition and, materially, these works are like any other acrylic on canvas–they are still an image. I assume that what I am standing in front of is trying to play a trick on me, because it plays with my expectations and exposes the systems I use to make sense of the things I see.
These things are, as I discover, not always intentional. The process is an iterative one made up of adding and removing, creating and destroying. The artist’s products work on levels that are totally visceral, operating individually and as a whole body of works in this space, which it stimulates.
Marianna Uutinen: ‘Who’s Afraid of Red Stains and Yellow Snow,’ 2026, installation view at Hua International Berlin // Photo by Joe Clark, courtesy of the artist and Hua International
Uutinen foregrounds her body in this process: “[t]he body is a natural tool for me to use because I hardly even recognize using it. I don’t distinguish between mind and body–for me, the body is a psychophysical entity and a spiritual tool.” It’s difficult to ignore the contrast between the natural tool of the body and the artificiality of the acrylic. But these two poles are mediated by skins, which temporarily exchange roles as either controller or controlled. They both exist in the same environment. In the warmth they become rubbery, in the cold, they become brittle and crack. The result bears resemblance to ice-capsules used for scientific purposes: the state of bodies captured in time, materially.
The room is roughly divided into two halves. They are unequal in the amount of works they contain, but equal in their volume. On the one side are an array of silver, blue, yellow, pink and champagne-colored works that melt into the walls and across the floor. The empty spaces that they contain–the floors, the walls and those spaces on the canvas that are not covered by acrylic skin–feel naked and bare but are completely necessary, fused together like land and water.
Marianna Uutinen: ‘Daily,’ 1994, acrylic on canvas, 170 x 204 cm // Photo by Joe Clark, courtesy of the artist and Hua International
Transitions are translucent and seamless despite there being no dominant colors. One work that encapsulates this within itself is ‘Daily.’ Sensual layers of pink and yellow react similarly to a tequila sunrise that has been sliced by a swirling straw. While the complex maze-like surface baffles as to its creation, slits emerge here and there, posing as clues. Acrylic that had been applied in only a thin layer dried as a cut in the skin. This piece of plastic has come to exhibit signs of life: ruptures in the surface expose that what is below is the same as what is above. When I move beyond the cuts, I think I start to see bodily fluids, rawness and sex.
On the far side exists this black hole that assumes a loud silence. ‘Requiem for M. Mouse’ has a seemingly oily surface that reminds me of black bile. I cannot help but think of death. When one thinks of the title’s references, plasticity again plays an important role, begging the question: what is real and what is not? Both in its color and the space it consumes, ‘Requiem for M. Mouse’ has been cut off from the other works. It has been given its own “sacred” space that only comes to be that with me in it.
Marianna Uutinen: ‘Requiem for M. Mouse (from the Death Series),’ 2026, acrylic on canvas, 112 x 232 cm // Photo by Joe Clark, courtesy of the artist and Hua International
The associations I had tried to battle rely on separations and transgressions. Uutinen’s process seems to represent the opposite. Material, mind and body cannot be separated. The artist has the need to deny herself as the subject, as the author of her own desires. There is no aim to depict something. Instead, things happen through a fusion of the material and semiconscious states of mind and body, resulting in a sort of self-denial that, to Uutinen, is the sensation of being free. The process is a performance in and of itself. The artist’s body is caught in between subject and object, almost taking up the position of the viewer.
At its core, the abject is a question of visibility. Specifically, it is about seeing things outside of the contexts afforded by our social and cultural rules. In Uutinen’s works I see that which otherwise can’t be seen or captured, that which only the body can create and understand. The interaction between two skins is captured in time, becoming the product itself—the slice exposes what is below and inside.
Exhibition Info
Hua International
Marianna Uutinen: ‘Who’s Afraid of Red Stains and Yellow Snow?’
Exhibition: Feb. 14-Apr. 11, 2026
hua-international.com
Potsdamer Str. 81B, 10785 Berlin, click here for map
