Bay College to present artist Vihanto
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ESCANABA - Bay College announces an exhibition, Sanna Vihanto, Invisible Play... Join us for an artist talk and reception at 2 p.m. Eastern Thursday, Aug. 27, in the Besse Gallery on the Bay College Escanaba campus. The exhibition will be on display from Aug. 27-Oct. 1. This event is free and open to the public.
Sanna Vihanto (b. 1979, Sotkamo) is a Finnish visual artist working in the fields of visual and environmental art. She holds an MA in Arts Education from Aalto University (2012) and a BFA from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (2009) and has supplemented her studies at international art schools.
Vihanto has realized several large-scale environmental art projects and public commissions, including numerous works for various departments of the Kainuu hospital. She has received working and mobility grants as well as regional recognitions, such as the Kainuu Cultural Wellbeing Award (2025) and the Sotkamo Cultural Award (2023). Vihanto also works as an art educator and actively participates in community art projects in Northern Finland.
This exhibition of acrylic paintings opens up the invisible world of a child's play: moments when a child becomes a bird, a dancer or an explorer rise to the surface through colour, movement and layered surfaces. The works move on the threshold -- by the shore, in the meadow, swinging in the air -- and connect the child's freedom and imagination to broader themes: time, simultaneous presence and absence, bridges to another reality, layers of memory and the fleeting moments that pass through childhood.
Bird and butterfly motifs recur in many paintings, as do the light of water and shore, the play of shadows and dreamlike, translucent figures. Through these images the works also build a personal bridge: some paintings conceal my own childhood experiences and sensory memories. The process has been as much a journey into motherhood -- following my child's development and admiring play and imagination -- as a return to my own childhood memories and games.
Questions about the artist or exhibition may be directed to Bay College Art Faculty and Fine Arts Coordinator Kristine Hunter at 906-217-4252 or kristine.hunter@baycollege.edu.