BIOGRAPHY
Pirkko Cunningham was born in Kerimäki in Eastern Finland where she grew up following the end of the Second World War. After attending her local school, she continued her studies at evening classes whilst working in Helsinki for 5 years before moving to England. In the early 1970s she travelled extensively, visiting countries such as Spain, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Australia, Mexico and the USA before settling in Edmonton in Canada with her family where she studied Art & Design at the University of Alberta from 1978-1983.
After moving back to the UK Pirkko studied at the University of Sussex specialising in Modernism and History of 18th Century Art. She also trained with Roy Oxlade, Georgia Hayes and Rose Wylie at the Tunbridge Wells Arts Centre and for over 30 years she has been tutored by Julian Le Bas, a pupil of Dennis Creffield who was himself taught by David Bomberg.
Pirkko has attended numerous art courses in locations such as Tuscany, Amalfi, Croatia, Cornwall and Seaford as well as the Lofoten Islands in Norway.
Home is still East Sussex where Pirkko continues to draw, paint and take inspiration from the forest, lakes and woodlands that surround her.
EXHIBITIONS
2021 Coningsby Gallery, London
2016 Lunn Fine Art, London
2016 The Grange Art Gallery, Rottingdean
2015 Chelsea Gallery, London
2005 Selfridges, London
2005 Brighton Media Centre, Sussex
2001 Chequer Mead Gallery, East Grinstead
1999 South East Open Studio, Sussex
1998 Star Gallery, Lewes
1997 Finnish Church, London
1996 Atrium Gallery, London
1996 Phoenix Gallery, Brighton
1995 Trinity Gallery, Tunbridge Wells
1995 Hyde Park Gallery, London
1992 Gardener Arts Centre, Sussex
QUOTATIONS
I would not paint a face, a rock, nor brooks, nor trees mere semblances of things, but something more than these. That art is best which to the soul’s range gives no bound, something besides the form, something beyond the sound.
Chinese Poet | 8th Century
Drawing is not what one sees but what one can make others see.
Edgar Degas | Artist 1834-1917
Pirkko Cunningham’s extraordinary drawings have a beautifully defined sense of mass and balance composition….. What makes the works in this exhibition so distinctively strong is the constant courageous effort involved to rise above the known and familiar. The formal arrangement of marks on paper to capture the structure and scale of the figure are evident, but not enough. Each of these drawings contains something more. A life affirming spark.
Julian Le Bas | Artist, Tutor and Curator 2005
Cezanne has said before that ‘Art is a harmony parallel to nature… the landscape is reflected, is harmonised, is thought in me. I objectify it, I project it. I fix it on my canvas’, and these thoughts are evident in all of Pirkko’s landscape work. They capture that feeling that nature isn’t something merely to be copied and replicated – but personalised, re-invented and created from. It’s particularly relevant to have Cezanne’s words; an artist whose significance David Bomberg considered only he fully understood. To say that Bomberg has influenced Pirkko’s work is an understatement – Bomberg is a pioneer for Pirkko both stylistically and conceptually. Through both of these elemental artists runs the idea that only nature holds anything eternal and timeless, and to represent this requires a strong spiritual association with nature and the landscape itself.
Max Lunn | Exhibition Curator 2016
As far as music goes the simplest thing to forget is what music (and any art form) is about. It’s about creating the things that you think are beautiful. You have to learn to be certain of what you like, not about what someone else thinks sounds good. You have to learn your own heart and your own mind. Whatever you think is beautiful, that’s what’s beautiful. And you have to pursue that road.
Chick Corea | Musician 1941-2021