Ainu is a lighting designer and light artist. She makes animation, other video content and set design. She graduated as a lighting designer from Tampere Polytechnic in 2000 and from University College London yr. 2008.
First light art works by her were seen in 2010. Since then she has made light art pieces for festivals and public spaces. Strong presence of drama in her work is parented by the background of her work in stage arts.
She uses abstract imagery as well as more factual images and dynamics in between. The works most often have changes in them. The way how one image changes to another is as important as what is seen when the changes are done.
Her works dive into the value of beauty. She invites people by the side of the work with flashy and forceful visual initial contact from which, usually, there is a possibility to realize underlying other meanings. In her work she brings darker sides of life up
with tenderness.
Her works often require some activity from the part of the viewer. Interconnection between maker and viewer is essential and the pieces sometimes are practically not ready before it is experienced. She can be said to be a visualizer of communication.
Her main interests at the moment are inter species coexistence and how the force of the sea of humans can form the future of earth also better. At the moment she is curating a light art exhibition for birds and insects.
ALEXANDER REICHSTEIN (born 1957, Moscow) has lived and worked in Helsinki, Finland, since 1990, making art in different ways. He has been illustrating children books for international publishers, making
sculptures and designing playgrounds, leading workshops and arranging happenings, building up temporary and permanent exhibitions and installations in a wide range of institutions from day care centers to prominent art museums. Reichstein’s largescale exhibition projects balance on the edge between illusionism and elitist art, pop art and academic art, amusements for children and entertainment for aesthetes, while his playful interactive installations put viewers in touch with ancient myths and complex phenomena from cultural history.
While Reichstein has changed the topics, concepts, media and style of his works over the years, he has remained faithful to his method, based on the active communication between art objects and viewers. The public has the chance to complete Reichstein’s works conceptually and, sometimes, even physically. An important feature of Reichstein’s exhibitions is their mobility: they can be easily transported and installed. This has made it possible for museum- and festivalgoers in Finland, Sweden, Germany, Russia, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, France, Israel, Poland, Lithuania, Latviaand other countries to enjoy Reichstein’s installations.
Alexander’s work holds a special place in the artistic culture of Finland, where it was awarded the Finnish State Prize in 2008, the SLS prize in 2016, the Topelius Medal in 1999, and the Finlandia Junior Prize in 1997.
Light Artist
Alexander Salvesen primarily works with light in different forms. In his works he likes to emphasize colour, space and shape, and especially their relations to each other and to the viewer. He is interested in the manipulation of our perception and likes to, through his works, tickle the viewer's mind to reflect on their own senses and suggest a moment of serenity by just being present in the moment. Salvesen finds inspiration outside in nature and in its phenomena, but also in present political and socio economic situations.
I often create my works by studying light in different spaces and materials. My practice is guided by an aspiration to understand the behavior of matter. Seeing light as matter is both a concrete and an interpretative part of the works. In my most recent light utilizing work “Connection” I've created constantly changing wall sceneries through the interplay of static wall mounted objects and moving colored light. In the works from the series “Entropy” I've painted copper with heat and flame. The gas fueled flame colors copper with the tones of blue, yellow and red: copper becomes touched by light. In other pieces I have also made use of different kinds of mirroring materials, acrylics and other light reflecting surfaces and contrasted them with black space which fades out the proportions of the surrounding space.
Anna Shkodenko (1986) is a multidisciplinary artist, whose work is characterised by a lyrical and analytical approach to her medium and visual image. The format of the work depends on the conceptual frame, which she creates through textual writing and which is conditioned by a specific place, context and theme.
Tomi Humalisto is a renown and awarded lighting designer and space planner. He has been working in the field for the last two decades. Humalisto currently holds a position as Professor, Degree Programmes and Master's Degree Programme in Lightning Design, Theatre Academy.
Anne Roininen is best known of her light art installations in apartment buildings, in which homes are illuminated in different colours. With these socially engaged site-specific light art installations she has successfully worked since 2012. Her artworks are mainly created outside the galleries in city or countryside scape and often in collaboration with others.
Anni Laukka (b. 1982) is a Finnish visual artist who works with shadow sculptures among other mediums. Playing with light and shadow, Laukka creates sculptures and installations with varying materials. Often the material tells its own story and a contradiction or a deeper perspective on the subject can be found in the silhouette-like shadow. Some of her works have two or three different shadows. She draws ideas for her works from the world around her and from phenomena and matters that weigh on her mind.
Antti Pussinen works in the field of media, light, sound and fine arts.
I have background in experimental music and sound art. Later I have started to see / use light as similar material as sound.
Anu is a visual artist from Helsinki, Finland, working with light, painting, drawing, sculpture, video and performance. Light has been a unifying factor as a medium, subject and a metaphor in her work. Anu graduated from Finnish Academy of Fine Arts with a Masters Degree in December 2017 and has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Finland, Sweden, Japan and Italy.
Anu has developed a unique technique of light drawing that makes use of special painting medium and paper. She has found something new in this light drawing technique that plays with concepts of materiality and surface. Combining sculpting, drawing and light her works create their own world between familiar and alien, where light is the unifying, vitalizing force of the works.
Artist Collective Kunst was founded in spring 2013 by finnish artists Jarmo Palola, Anu Suhonen and Julia Weckman. January 2016 we got three members working with us; artists Christina Holmlund, Pia Paldanius ja Sirpa Päivinen. Together we do and make, plan and speak.
We organize performative exhibitions and events, develop all kinds of projects to work on. We curated and coordinated Gallery Lapinlahti in 2016-2019. In 2018 Kunst received Regional Art Prize of Uusimaa from Arts Promotion Centre Finland.
I have been making both installation art and art based on light for 45 years.
Lighting artist Ekku Peltomäki works as a lighting designer with the Komediateatteri Arena theatre in Helsinki, Finland. Peltomäki is a pioneer of Finnish theatre, landscape and exhibition lighting design and he has won the Finnish lighting work of the year with his lighting design for the Sapokka water park in 1993. In addition, he was named lighting designer of the year in 1988. Peltomäki's lighting design for the Cats musical in 1986 is still the largest stage production according to several criteria, and he has designed and constructed lighting for a number of stage productions ranging from classical ballet and opera to heavy rock. Ekku Peltomäki's most significant lighting exhibitions include Retretti 1988 exhibition, "Siniristit" ("Blue crosses on white"), Retretti 1989exhibition, "Elämän virta" ("Stream of life"), "Finlandia", Tytyri 1995 exhibition, "Valkoinen fantasia" ("White fantasy"), Tytyri 1996 exhibition, "Valon juhlaa" ("Celebration of light"), Tytyri 2002 exhibition, Tytyri 2003 exhibition – "Ekku Peltomäki: Valoteoksia" ("Works of light") and Tytyri- Myrsky Oratorio ( Storm Oratorio ).
Lighting designer and light artist, lighting coordinator for the city of Jyväskylä.
Emma Rönnholm is a visual artist, working predominately with sculpture, installation and kinetic/light art. She likes to set her works in motion using simple motorised mechanisms, tension, optical illusions or light. The pieces are often made of recycled everyday materials used in cheeky, thought provoking ways. Humour, DIY and a certain meditative rhythm define her artistic oeuvre. Rönnholm obtained her MA in the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts in 2011 and has since exhibited extensively in Finland and abroad.
Architectural lighting designer and light artist.
Fern Orchestra is a bilingual, multifaceted multi-art group that has studied subjects such as photosynthesis, closed biosphere and the senses of plants in their works. Plants and micro-organisms operate as the orchestra's intruments while the works include performance art, contemporary dance, publications and light art. Fern Orchestra's works highlight the relationship between humans, light and nature.
We specialise in holographic decor, an unique way of creating 3D UV decor floating in the air.
Galleria Kandela is a lighting designer based trio, organising light art exhibitions and happenings. The basis of the work is to give lighting designers a platform to try out their work in a visual arts' context. Kandela has arranged workshops, exhibitions and combinations of the two. The members are: Sisu Nojonen, Mia Kivinen and Nanni Vapaavuori.
In her art, Stålnacke focuses on sculptures and installations made from recycled materials, in which light plays a key role. Thematically, she deals with environmental policy threats. At the heart of the works is the experiencer, a character of the future for whom memories and images of the world we know are distorted. They are colored by an apocalyptic landscape. Nature appears in the works as dream images built of trash. Despite the thematically gloomy undertone, the artist strives to find beauty where it is not usually seen.
Hexagon is a living experiment fusing the worlds of natural materials, sacred geometry and high technology. It’s a playground for arcane algorithms, occult bitstreams and tangible illusions.
Light art is a tinder match against physical and mental darkness.
Immanuel Pax is a Helsinki-based light artist and light art curator, who focuses on current social phenomena and underlying issues. Immanuel’s artworks combine a site-specific, interactive approach and most of them require public participation in order to be realised.
For over twenty years, Irina Pått has been known and recognized for her handmade and ecological design lighting and 3-D paperworks. Her new material is sustainable birch veneer. She has shown these new works in three successful exhibitions during the last two years.
Since her childhood, Pått has been dancing classical ballet and it is dance itself that has given inspiration for these new pieces. She has worked with lighting during much of her career, and now she is using LED lights to create a line of light as an effective detail. There is a certain nostalgia she feels in these light effects, as she recalls the first neon lights she saw on the Lasipalatsi building roof in the 1950’s, and remembers the huge impact they made on her.
These lightworks are designed for both public and private venues. The pieces are both functional products and pure works of art, which challenge and blur the categorization between functional objects and visual arts. They honour the history of reliefs, while being very much her own expression. The works are reliefs with sunken hollow lighting. The stripes of different layers resemble “Giants’ Kettles” from the Ice Age. The environmentally friendly veneer is finished with wax. Using wood in buildings and interiors meets the criteria of sustainability. As well, wood has a positive effect on health and well-being and provides solutions to indoor air problems and noise reduction, while reducing our carbon footprint.
Pått received her B.A. from the Institute of Industrial Arts, Helsinki in 1969. From 1986 to 1990 she studied in Canada and received her Master’s degree from the University of Arts and Design/Aalto University, Helsinki in 1990.
Her works of art have been exhibited around the world: Kunsthalle in Helsinki, American Craft Museum in New York, Mingei Museum in San Diego, Harbourfront Gallery in Toronto, Louvre Musee des Arts Decoratififs in Paris, Rohsska Museet in Gothenburg, Rundetarn in Copenhagen and Imadate Exhibition of Paper Art in Japan.
Important public and private collections: Serlachius Art Sauna at Mantta, Finnish State Collection, Bank of Finland, City of Helsinki, G18, Foundation Pro Artibus, City Hall of Raseborg.
Isabella Chydenius (b.1988) is a Finnish interdisciplinary artist based in Helsinki and Berlin, Germany. Chydenius has recently graduated from a Master of Fine Art degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town, in April 2021. Her research-based work focuses on investigating societal structures of femininity, gender and safety/violence. She is interested in the behavioural social constructs behind what constitutes as feminine and masculine in contemporary heteropatriarchal time. Her interdisciplinary conceptual work combines technologies such as light, sound, videography and interactive animation, to create experiential installations. Chydenius uses the medium of light in the specific colour of Club Pink as a metaphor for topics of her research. She also works with more traditional mediums like textiles, thread, clay, painting and found objects which she uses to form sculptural installations or audience activated compositions.
WORKS ON LIGHT AND SHADOW ”I am interested in combining natural and artificial light into my works, as well as in darkness and shadows. In my sculptures, installations and other public works of art I study light and space: the way materials reflect light, and how artistic and functional lighting can be combined. The multiple public light pieces and contest propositions I have carried out have neared on environmental lighting planning, with the possibilities of visual arts realised. [When working] in collaboration with architects and other design professionals, art and artistic lighting can form as a natural part of a building, space or urban environment.” Jaakko Niemelä has participated in the Architecture of Light -training schedule in the updating education programme lead by Aalto University's School of Art and Design.
Jani Rättyä (born 1973) is a Finnish artist specialized in sculpture and painting and has been exhibiting his work since 1998. His paintings have been described as luminous, vivid, and oddly communicative.
Janne Parviainen is a light artist from Helsinki. His work has been featured in various magazines, books and art blogs such as The National Geographic, The Guardian, Daily Mail, Wired, Juxtapoz, Spiegel Online, Metro Newspaper. Janne has worked with well-known brands such as Adobe Systems Inc., Olight and Nippon Television producing high-level artistic material for commercial use. His work has been on display globally on exhibitions, light art festivals and museums. Janne Parviainen has been working as an art educator for 20 years in different art schools in Finland and arranges light art workshops in Finland and abroad.
CONTACT INFORMATION
BLAF Best of Light Art in Finland
is hosted by
Finnish Light Art Society FLASH
2877700-6
LightArtFi
Producer: Annukka Ketola
annukka.ketola@valotaiteenseura.fi
+358 40 735 3972
Curators:
Mia Kivinen / mia.kivinen@valotaiteenseura.fi
Anna Björklund / anna.bjorklund@valotaiteenseura.fi
