KARITA KIVIKOSKI-VEIJALAINENPaintings 5.4.2008 – 27.4.2008

The allegorical works of Karita Kivikoski-Veijalainen (b.1968) have in earlier exhibitions focused on the plant world. She resumes this theme in the Fuschia and Little one´s dancing series. The empty rooms, windows, curtains and doors of the Innermost series become the artist´s inner spaces - they are studies into her own emotions. Kivikoski-Veijalainen says of her work:

It takes several years to conquer a new space as one´s personal inner world. Painting has helped me settle in at my new home. The works in the Innermost series connect me with my own environment, which no longer feels foreign. I am now part of my home. I am within, looking without. How much of a peek of the world do I dare take? How much of myself can I see? What do I want to see of the world? I make my choices. Do I limit the world? What am I prepared to encounter? These are the reflections and debates that I have addressed through painting. There are no answers, only an idea at some level of my own role in the choices.

The inspiration for the works in the Fuschia series came from cultivated fuschia plants. The intense colours and shapes of these plants fascinated me and got me interested in various hues of purple and lilac. Through the colours, I also examined the shapes of the inflorescences. I started to contemplate womanhood and growing into a woman. The Finnish name of the plant, which literally translates as ‘droplets of blood,´ speaks of the entire life cycle of womanhood and the stuff that womanhood is very much about.

Rauli Heino