The recurring presence of birds in Susanne Broända’s work is not tied to symbolic storytelling or a fixed metaphor. They appear as forms that hold tension between stillness and motion, orientation and uncertainty. The birds remain without eyes, avoiding psychological individuality and the narrative that follows. Without eyes, they stay open to the viewer as orientation, presence and possibility. Their presence offers direction within compositions where atmosphere, line and material operate in a quiet state of becoming.
Broända is a visual artist based in Korsholm, near Vaasa, Finland. Her practice spans painting, sculpture and spatial installation, forming a connected visual language across paper, object and environment. Whether working on printmaking paper, in wood and metal, or within an entire room, her focus remains on how perception is shaped through material, rhythm and the image itself.
Ink and acrylic on printmaking paper form the core of her practice. Over time, this particular paper has become a trusted collaborator, balancing absorption and resistance in a way that sharpens her marks and decisions. From these surfaces, her visual language extends into sculpture through wood, metal and rope, and further into installation, where atmosphere becomes spatial and embodied.
Broända works through visual intuition and non-verbal cognition. In her process, the image precedes language and meaning emerges through perception rather than explanation. Themes of inwardness, transformation and quiet presence recur, not as narrative devices but as elements of an inner landscape that unfolds in its own tempo.
Her works resonate with artistic lineages concerned with perception, ontology and the non-verbal dimensions of experience. Rather than aiming for interpretation or symbolic decoding, they operate at the threshold between the visible and the unseen. The intention is not to describe, but to open a space where attention deepens and the familiar becomes perceptible in a different register.
Long-term health challenges have shaped Broända’s methods, requiring precision over force and distilled decision-making over extended physical labor. Every gesture must matter. Every phase must be deliberate. Far from limiting the work, this has refined its quiet concentration and sharpened its sensitivity to structure, rhythm and the moment when an image holds.
Ultimately, her practice invites the viewer to pause, to inhabit a slower cognition and to encounter the work without demand for resolution. In that space, the boundary between inner and outer terrain loosens, allowing perception to operate before language.