MARIKA KAARNAPaintings 5.4.2008 – 27.4.2008

The works of Marika Kaarna (b. 1966) suggest naïve and surrealist influences. Despite their naïve style, Kaarna´s pieces are more than just representations of everyday life. Rather, they often offer comment, take a stance. Motifs that at first may appear childlike transcend themselves to become universal and timeless. Kaarna says of the magical world created in her paintings:

Once upon a time in a city, in two neighbourhoods very close to one another, there lived a black sheep and a white sheep. So little did they know of one another that they might as well have lived on different planets. Sometimes, as the white sheep grazed on its lettuce patch it could smell smoke and thought to itself: "Couldn´t those black sheep just quit smoking and do something useful instead?" It once happened that a black sheep accidentally burned down a church and another crashed a party given by a princess.

Rauli Heino