KALEVALA

1991

"Kalevala", the title which FRANEK has given to a serie of her paintings, was chosen by the artist in connection with a Finnish epos of the same name. The relationship between paintings to epos is not as direct as one of illustration to text. The cycle of paintings is independent creation growing out of her own view - not just outward, physical observation, but also through introspection. But in the "Kalevala" epic FRANEK rediscovered much of that same world between myths and tales of nature in which images flow to her from the Finnish landscape andwhich she has captured in her many-faceted paintings - the darkness of the long Finnish winter nights, the quiet, never brash light of the summer. Elias Lönnrot worked over a great length of time during the last century to forge this epic saga from numerous traditional songs sung for generations in the forest settlements of Karelia. This great work came to be considered a late romantic "symbol of a national myth" (Hans Fromm)."

Lothar Romain: Landscape and Myth. In: catalog Kalevala, Gal. Winkelmann Düsseldorf 1991