Hanna Vahvaselkä (b.1973)
is a sculptor from Mikkeli, who graduated from the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 1999. Hanna feels that she wound up in the profession of an artist through chance. Her philosophy of life includes a kind of absurd drifting about in the world. Hanna enjoys working with her hands. The main material of her sculptures is wood, from which she makes large relief-like works. She is interested in the two-dimensional surface and its composition. Sometimes wood is the base for the works, and sometimes it is an active element with its own idiom. She works on ready-made or self-made adhesive sheets with chisels, oil paints, drawing and scorching. She finds her subjects and themes in her nearby surroundings, in everyday and experienced life. She describes the world that she experiences and perceives around her and she has proceeded in her works from figurative motifs to abstract expression. In her works, Hanna also addresses broader issues related to humanity, asking here are we coming from and where we are going, and themes related to presence, outsiderness and the passing of time. Her work at the M_itä? Biennale of Contemporary Art in the Kuopio Art Museum spreads out from sculptures in relief on the walls to become a installation-type entity.
Photos: Harri Heinonen
