”I try to say as much as possible with as little as possible.” We visited Finnish painter Henni Alftan in her fascinating studio – a former stable in a charming Paris backyard.
”I think of every painting as a singular project. I don’t do process-based painting in the sense that I don’t work on several pieces at the same time. I only work on one painting at a time, and I finish it. I start it, and I finish it in the same time period.”
”I would love for us to have a common denominator. I would love to find a sort of common ground. I like it when my pictures look like you’ve already seen them somewhere.”
”When there is a human presence in my paintings, I rarely show the person in its entirety because
the less you show, the more you appeal to imagination. I always find it funny that people ask about narration or storytelling in my painting, because I’m not telling a story. You are. I’m giving you triggers to your imagination.”
Born in Helsinki in 1979 and based in Paris, Henni Alftan depicts everyday scenes and objects, often cropped or otherwise fragmented, each rendered with a studied economy of means. Despite her pared-down aesthetic, Alftan’s experiments with color, texture, scale, and perspective produce canvases rich in layered meanings that double as metaphors for seeing and comprehending the world through the physical properties of paint. Institutional group exhibitions include those at Centre Pompidou-Metz, France (2025); Longlati Foundation, Shanghai (2024); Amos Rex Art Museum, Helsinki (2024); Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City (2024); EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo (2023); Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Finland (2023); LACMA, Los Angeles (2022); ENSA Limoges, École Nationale Supérieur d’Art (2020); Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art, Vaasa (2018); Hämeenlinna Art Museum, Finland and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest (both 2017) and Amos Anderson Art Museum, Helsinki (2015). Alftan’s works are included in the collections of the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York; Amos Rex Art Museum, Helsinki; Dallas Museum of Art; EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Espoo, Finland; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Helsinki Art Museum; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Kuntsi Museum of Modern Art, Vaasa, Finland; Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the UBS Art Collection.
Henni Alftan was interviewed by Marc-Christoph Wagner in her studio in Paris, France. The conversation took place in April 2026.
Camera: Simon Weyhe
Edited by: Nanna Dahm
Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner
Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2026
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