Save the date

As the days draw closer to the upcoming exhibition, I've found myself spending a lot of time in the sculpting department with the casting works. Photos of that process will be posted as soon as I get the work in a good stage. I might also learn how to weld if everything goes well. That'll be interesting, not to mention it being a skill that I actually should obtain since working as a studio supervisor (yes, they gave  me a new title!) also means that I should know how to use the machinery we have there in order to aid the students with their projects. Always glad to have a few extra challenges on the side.

Anyhow, here's the 'save the date' notification on our exhibition, and the translation reads
'The Red Elephant  -  prints and sculptures'.

More things to come on this matter and a whole bunch of others. Stay tuned.

The Red Elephant

As some may have noticed, I've mentioned something being on its way as the summer draws closer. It's the first collaborative exhibition I'm having with this delightful lady, who just recently had her very first solo exhibition and is now on full throttle in presenting her art to the public. We've studied together over five years already and the last year was spent at the former Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, which nowadays carries the name of University of Arts Helsinki as the three art academies of art, theatre and music merged into one big institution. Whether it was to state rivalry to The Aalto University or to just combine arts in the way it had been discussed over time in the Finnish art field, all of the options may be true.

Putting that aside, the year we spent at the Printmaking Department did wonders for us both and nudged our artistic ambitions forward quite efficiently. Hence the next summer's exhibition. The name 'The Red Elephant' carries a distant memory we both had without knowing about each other, namely the memory of an old, red, and huge (from a child's point of view, mind you) elephant made of steel and on which the children climbed in a park we have in my hometown. As for not knowing what the other had experienced with the elephant, well, Iida comes from Savo so yours truly had never bumped into her while living in Hamina, but her mother's side originates from the said tiny town and when asked, many knew the said family, as we discovered when I took Iida to visit the place and find her mother's old home.

Needless to say, the curiosity has been there ever since Iida stated that she had visited the said town plenty of times when she was little. After the printmaking year and then discovering that the elephant didn't exist in the park any longer due to some over-eager bureucrat deeming it too dangerous for children to play with (as if the blue horrendous...thing they replaced the elephant with is any less dangerous), we felt we needed to pay our respects for the mighty beast that had challenged many generations to reach the top and sit there like Hannibal itself after reaching the victory. That and its trunk was a long slide so it was obviously the thing to play with.

  

Picture by Antti-Jussi Larvio, Kymen Sanomat

The theme inspired us to work on both two- and three-dimensional elements, namely Iida doing gigantic prints and yours truly working with a combination of plaster, metal pipes, old wood and a couple of old wheels. The biggest construction will be built during a couple of days in Hamina, for there to be no reason to build it in Helsinki and then transport it to the exhibition location. Anyhow. Lots of things happening. The venue is an old gunpowder storage building which had also served as potatoe storage after the wars, and the story goes that its roof was once destroyed due to an unfortunate ignition happening in the gunpowder barrels. 

Nowadays the building works as a gallery and they were kind to accept our exhibition idea. So, after a busy month of performance its all natural to have an equally busy month in sculpting. Pictures of the actual sculpture will be posted once it gets properly started, and maybe even glimpses of Iida's prints if asked nicely enough.

3 X 20

The previous weeks have passed in a frenzy with all the preparations for the small performance series that was made in a collaboration with a model whom I've had the privilege to work with these passing semesters.

This small series will be a part of my upcoming thesis which is based on my earlier BA work and is currently being worked on, the actual theoretical part started mainly during summer when there's more time to immerse myself into the needed literature.

For further elaboration, check this section.

Of the philosophic sculptor...and the pineapple

As the previous posts have mentioned, I had worked as an assistant for a brief moment to Heimo Suntio, a sculptor who mainly works with old objects of wood, paper and glass as well with bronze casts. He usually reflects his thinking and things he has read in his works, as well creating different both mental and physical spaces in them. Also, coincidentally, he's originally from the same town as I am, which was fun to see during the everyday interaction between two individuals from the same dialect area. It takes one to know one, and it was nice to notice that despite our obvious generation gap the common subjects were still relatively easy to find.

I learned a lot from him concerning a variety of subjects from building hefty things to reflecting my own thoughts in his pieces and the philosophies he used as the fundamental base for this current exhibition. Plus I got yet another opportunity to polish my skills in the field of graphic design, as he gave me the task of doing the layouts for both his invitations and the exhibition poster. Now the assisting project has ended and the works are presented for public at the Gallery Sculptor, so pop there to see what this peculiar man has in store for the fellow men.

 Did you spot the pineapple?

Northern adventures - Liminka

Been a while to post anything, more from the reason of being a busy devil at the moment with the upcoming performance series and the work mode, not to mention the neverending school deadlines breathing on the neck constantly. Nevertheless, having a good, if slightly sleep-deprived spring semester, something to be corrected once the next week is safely passed. Then all is empty in this workmaster's/assistant's/art student's/all-around-guy's calendar.

Until the summer's exhibition with a couple of hundred tiny elephants, that is.

Minor details.

Iida Kauppinen, 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle'. Drypoint, 2013

Meanwhile, went and visited little sister a couple of weeks ago in her current school, which is a well-known private boarding school (perhaps even the word 'prep-school' could be used) called The Liminka School of Art. The school is located near Oulu , a city in the middle of Finland by the shores of Baltic Sea. She has enjoyed her stay there immensely and has learned many new skills to improve her artistic work, moreover providing a good enviroment to meet fellow future artists and share the common thoughts, as well debate over various issues. It seems that she has fallen for both printmaking and sculpting, plus, being the skilled drawer that she is, she has already established a good reputation with in the live model classes. It won't be long to have a very compatible rival in this field, apparently.

Scratch that. She already is.

They have different houses for each field of art, which involve comics, painting, printmaking, photography, sculpting and then the advanced arts, meaning the ones that study there for two years. These two pictures are from the shared house of both sculpting and painting.

 The house of printmaking was the cutest one. Obviously.

The most adorable printing hall ever.

 

One of her plates, this one is her very first relief etchings, of which yours truly has a very beautiful print here at home. The size is about 5 cm x 5 cm, and she used lacquer to make the sharp form.

 

Illegally cute acid room.

Some close-ups on her biggest print yet made, just to show what kind of nifty little printmaker is about to bloom in near future. Even the overly pedantic older sis was speechless for half a second.

And yes, they have a wooden sauna. 

With a punching bag in the dressing room. 

No need to further explain why she loves living there.

After 'the legendary older sister from Helsinki', a.k.a 'oh god the master student from Aalto University School of Arts' had paid her respects for the lovely young ladies at the dorm and enjoyed a calm evening in their company with a good night's rest, we then carried on with the little adventure further back to Oulu where the sister's boyfriend both lives and studies at the moment. He gave us a brief tour at the Conservatory of Oulu, where he also delighted our day with a tiny concert consisting different musical pieces from Yiruma to Bach and the always entertaining themes of Zelda and Final Fantasy VII. The sunny spring day felt all the better during those moments.

The double trouble also showed different galleries and The Cultural Center Valve. It was nice to observe a completely different artistic ambiance for a change, and the current two photos were from a tiny exhibition in Gallery 5. This little piece by Riitta Turunen was (roughly translated) called 'The Axonometric Measurements'. After working with geometrical forms it caught the interest, and it was nice to see how an other artist uses the light and shadow to give different layers to her works.

Also, it had been a while to gleefully slide down the snowy hill in the middle of a market place and then grab some cake and tea. Funniest note was that our small group of three adults seemed to appear entertaining enough to attract a hoard of little children to slide down the hill as well. Felt a few years younger that day.

All in all the trip served well the goal of emptying the mind from all the stuff that had been piling up recently, and the next date to visit there is set already for the spring exhibition they're having in May. Will see what happens then.

The photos from the most recent happenings will appear once there's time to post them, then you'll see what happened to the pineapple that was shown in the previous post. Not to forget the tiny button, which the sculptor kindly gave as a keepsake for the time I worked as his assistant. More of that once other things are taken care of.

Now off to prepare for the next week's challenges.