Current Exhibition

Painted Oasis, a solo exhibition by Nanna Hänninen - 22nd January 2026- 19th March 2026

Tintera is thrilled to present Painted Oasis, the first solo exhibition in Egypt by acclaimed Finnish artist Nanna Hänninen.This show marks the culmination of a three-week residency in Egypt last March, during which Hänninen traveled through Cairo, Fayoum, and Siwa, investigating the delicate and often fragile relationship between nature and humanity. Drawing on her distinctive approach to landscape photography, first developed in her series on the American West, Painted Desert, Hänninen does not offer straightforward depictions of the desert. Instead, through staining and hand-painting, each image becomes a singular, deeply personal response to a shared reality. The exhibition features 18 unique hand-painted archival pigment prints alongside two large hand-painted photographs on canvas, each revealing the artist’s intimate dialogue with the Egyptian landscape.

As Hänninen writes, ‘Painted Oasis explores the beauty and resilience of nature and all its vulnerabilities due to humanity’s careless interventions. This series reflects on its survival and its struggles to find its balance. Faced with the reality of climate change, erosion, urban expansion, pollution and our dependence on fossil fuels, nature in its entirety has never been more threatened.

My process begins with extended journeys to remote landscapes, often between the oasis and the desert — places “in between”. My latest journey took me to Egypt — from the vibrant density of Cairo with its ancient pyramids to the stillness of the Siwa Oasis, where the desert and life meet on a fragile edge. Using photography as my medium I’m fascinated on how to transform the images through a process of staining, painting and varnishing the photos to create my own unique platform. When painting on photographs color becomes its own language of emotion and memory — fog turns red, shadows blue and light turns yellow. The tones of ancient Egypt — gold, blue, ochre — now infuse within my work, speaking of both life and death, mourning and hope.Painted Oasis is both an ode to life and a farewell to it as it once was. The landscape remains a silent witness — a shelter, a keeper of history and a reminder of our fragile coexistence with nature.’

Hänninen’s residency was supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and Adrere Amellal, Siwa.

Nanna Hänninen (b. 1973, Finland) is a Finnish photographic artist based in Kuopio. A graduate of the University of Art and Design Helsinki (now Aalto University), Hänninen’s practice explores identity, memory, and the emotional landscapes of displacement through conceptual and surreal imagery.

Her international career began at the Berlin Art Fair in 2000 and has since taken her across Europe, the United States, and North Africa. In the U.S., her work examined personal and cultural memory, while her recent project in Egypt explored landscapes and social environments in the oases and desert regions, combining documentary approaches with painterly interventions on the photographic surface.

Hänninen has exhibited with leading galleries including Galleri Bo Bjerggaard (Copenhagen), taubert contemporary (Berlin), Bryce Wolkowitz (New York), Camara Oscura del Arte (Madrid), and Gallery Ama (Helsinki). Her work is held in major public and private collections worldwide, and she remains one of the pioneering members of the Helsinki School.