K on E

2021

research Exhibition  

At Saari Residency / Kone Foundation
Small Studio
Collaboration with Veli Lehtovaara & Working Group 

Material: mixed media on paper  

“K on E” is a collection of printed, partly colorized images  working with refining perception at the interface of body  and environment, dance and image. The project originated  in relation to the performance project Ikimetsä / Clearcut, by  choreographer Veli Lehtovaara and working group, which  premiered at the Jyväskylän Kesä Festival in July 2021.  

In the initial phase working with the dancers, a central  aspect was the negotiation between presence and time.  Drawing what is there and drawing what is not there  anymore. This forced a sort of zooming-in to details, which  become anchors through the transience of motion. The  dialogue of form and time becomes visible in the resulting  images. 

Later in the process, I worked with a copy-printer to  reproduce the drawings, multiplying in order to cut,  resize, and rework them. After this period of post-production  collaging and colorization, the resulting multi-layered images  were flattened once more in the copy machine.  

In the works of “K on E”, shapes lose their solidity:  Specific human figures melt into each other and become  weird, impossible bodies. Bodies become environments.  The distinction between form and the in-between spaces is  blurred, singularity is replaced with polyphony.  

Moving forward with this project, I am interested in exploring if  shapes can resist meaning even when those shapes suggest  human bodies?