Meri Toivanen – Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
25.04.2025–​01.06.2025

Meri Toivanen (b. 1996, Finland) is an Antwerp-based painter who explores the borderlines of figuration and the symbolism of power dynamics throughout the painting process.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie is her first solo exhibition and the culmination of her five-month residency at MORPHO this Spring, which was organised with the support of the Finnish Cultural Foundation. In the exhibition, semi-monochromatic paintings and drawings depict figures entangled in close encounters like fights, standoffs, and gatherings around a game table. The works contain references to Finnish cinema and play with the shifts in meaning when these images are detached from their original material, place and context.

The exhibition opens on 25 April, simultaneously with While We Count Our Earthquakes by Larissa Sansour at Kunsthal Extra City. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie ends during the closing party of Antwerp Art Weekend on Sunday 1 June, where we will celebrate together with Kunsthal Extra City in our shared monastery garden.