KAISU KOIVISTO
"My artistic practice spans sculptural elements and objects as well as photography, drawing and video. These diverse strands come together in the framework of installations.
The topics and materials which I focus on are charged: materials
such as recycled leather and fur, horns and other organic matter bear traces of wear and tear, thus indicating the passage of time. I am interested in an ambivalent aesthetic, the simultaneity of
attractiveness and repulsiveness, the synthetic and the organic, the indexicality of photographs and the rough materiality of frottage drawings, a method I have employed recently.
The relationship between human beings and nature in all its forms is a starting point for me. I explore the ways in which nature and culture intersect and the modes in which mankind harnesses - or attempts to harness - and exploits natural phenomena. I build installations of animal-like creatures and ask: how do we look at animals? What is nature?
My interest in cultivated and restrained nature we encounter in human-made surroundings leads me to well-known metropolises as well as areas no longer in focus of geopolitical international
attention. Places in a dreamy state of oblivion such as former Cold War nuclear missile bases in Eastern Europe represent in my images estranged landscapes of the subconscious. I am inspired by
the way in which the environment changes. The present, past and the future are in constant motion."
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Kaisu Koivisto (b.1962) has studied at the University of Art and Design Helsinki (MFA). She has also studied art history and aesthetics at the University of Helsinki. She lives in Helsinki, Finland.
Kaisu Koivisto´s work have been shown for instance in the following institutions:
Kiasma, Helsinki; Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid; PS 1, New York; Museo Laboratorio dell´Universita di Roma,
Rome; Tokyo Metropolitan Museum, Galleria Sculptor, Helsinki; Pori Art Museum, Pori.
Artist-in-residence November 2012
