Maija Vanhatapio & Kaisa Sirén – Ensamble II

Maija Vanhatapio and Kaisa Sirén are showcasing Northern landscapes in their paintings and photographs. For both of them nature is an important element and they are connected thru that.

Maija Vanhatapio is a visual and graphic artist living and working in Kajaani. She is a member of Oulu art association. She has held a number of private exhibitions and has participated in group exhibitions both in Finland and other countries. She also has participated in several juried exhibitions.

Kaisa Sirén from Rovaniemi, is a photojournalist and artist who has photographed all around the world. The travel destinations are always chosen photography first and in the recent years she has photographed nature in Lapland but also in all the seven continents. Instead of the traditional nature photographs however, Kaisa’s images are abstract studies of the nature. Kaisa Sirén has held several private exhibitions and participated in group shows both in Finland and in foreign countries.  

Kaisa Sirén tells: “My day job as a photojournalist is very documentary and concrete, everything must be shown as it is. Therefore it is very nice to seek something of quite the contrary in my artistic photography. I deal with my inner feelings in my works and seek for their counterpart mindscapes in the nature. The views are photographed in an abstract way emphasizing colour in each scene. Due to the painterly technique the essence of the atmosphere created by shapes and colours is concentrated in the images and the concrete disappears. The viewer can concentrate in his/her own feelings while watching these images.

I am a person to see the light. As I wake up in the morning I have a very strong feel for the colour of the day. I try to capture the light of the midnight sun or the cold colours of polar night into a painted memory of the view I saw. As I paint with the camera the view is transformed into dreamlike images which bring a timeless serenity to the mind. I aim for something in which the colour is the main component. The images have been printed on 3 mm aluminium board and they have been taken in the last 2 years.“

Maija Vanhatapio: NATURA NATURANS – “The basis for my artistic expression is nature and strong essence of the North. In my works I combine abstract landscape views and drawings about the relationship between the human and the nature. My works are travels to landscapes and feelings, experiences of the one moving around in the nature – versatile and diverse feelings of the surroundings as a play of form and light. The paintings hung at Gallery Kellokas are not from a particular landscape; they are a mosaic of memories and the freeing force of a nature experience. I paint what I have seen; I dismantle the experience into pieces, pick up the most important ones and assemble them into an abstract story to for the viewer his of nature experience. The technique I use is acrylics and oli and the combination of the two with mixed media. All paintings have been done in 2019 and 2020.“

Come meet the artists at the gallery Friday 31.7.2020 from 10-13.

Gallery Kellokas is open daily 9-17. Welcome, free entry!