Johanna
Naukkarinen
Johanna Naukkarinen (b.1988) is a visual artist and a photographer who mainly works with the themes of feminist image research focusing on the images in the intersection of the history of medicine and the history of art.
She examines the power relations of historical and contemporary images with her photographic and mixed media art practice. Her critical, colorful and often ironic works circle around the concept of women as objects of photographic and scientific gaze. In her works she plays with a vintage scientific aesthetics and contemporary techniques.
The main focus on Naukkarinen´s works has been in the topics of female hysteria and Anatomical Venus.
With the theories of feminist image research Naukkarinen traces the path from historical images to more newer images that portray womanhood.
Naukkarinen graduated from fine art photography department in Arts Academy at Turku University of Applied Sciences and finished her MA in media studies department in the University of Turku.
Naukkarinen had her graduation exhibition Turku Art Museum Studio in 2016 and seven other solo shows has since followed including: B-Galleria, 2019; Galleria Huuto, 2020; Yö Galleria, 2021, GalleriA 2022 and Photographic Centre Peri 2024. Her works are represented in the collections of Turku Art Museum, Kuopio Art Museum and Turku City Art Collection.
Available for commissions and collaborations
Contact:
mari.johanna.naukkarinen(at)gmail.com
+358400768827
News
Next solo exhibition:
Attractive Specimen, Galleria Mältinranta, Tampere, 22.8-15.9.2026
Kuninkaankatu 2, 33210 Tampere
Exhibition opening on 21st of August at 6pm!
What would it be like to study human anatomy through pin-up images? And what might a feminine dissection table look like? Johanna Naukkarinen’s exhibition Attractive Specimen explores gender roles in historical medical anatomical imagery, as well as the history of medical sexism. At the heart of the exhibition are digital image collages, photographs, and fictional infographics that explore the position of female-assigned bodies as objects of the scientific gaze. The exhibition takes the form of an imaginary museum, where the histories of science and art collide.
At a time when conservative movements are seeking to restrict women’s and gender minorities’ right to knowledge about their own bodies, Naukkarinen uses historical examples to reveal the sexist traditions embedded in medicine. In anatomical imagery drawn from different periods, women are presented as corporeal spectacles, echoing representations from the history of art. At times more directly, at others more obliquely, Attractive Specimen asks: who gets to appear as the neutral image of humanity in the production of knowledge about the human body?
One of the exhibition’s central themes is the tradition of paintings of anatomical dissection at the intersection of scientific and artistic imagery. For centuries, male bodies were a staple of painted imagery, until the nineteenth century, when dead women also began to appear in anatomical dissection paintings, bringing new aesthetic conventions to the genre. Naukkarinen brings together paintings of anatomical dissection from different centuries and compares the gender roles they depict.
Also on display in the exhibition is the controversial textbook The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice (1971). It originated at Duke University in North Carolina, where a group of male professors wanted to update the teaching materials for first-year medical students. Their decision to commission Playboy photographers to create pin-up-style images depicting female anatomy for the book caused an uproar. At the same time, it brought to light elements of sexism prevalent in medical schools in the early 1970s. In her work addressing the book, Naukkarinen takes its imagery apart and reworks it in the form of imaginary health posters.
In the preface to the anatomy textbook, its authors state that the book should prepare medical students for the arrival of exceptionally beautiful women (attractive, well-turned specimen) at their future practices. The description of women as ‘attractive specimens’ forms part of a long continuum of medical sexism, and as the title of the exhibition, it now also becomes part of Naukkarinen’s sustained artistic practice exploring gender roles in the history of medicine.
The exhibition has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland, the Finnish Cultural Foundation (Southwest Finland Regional Fund), and an anonymous donor.
The table depicted in the poster was made by sculptor Eero Nives. The person in the image is Laura Jalava.