Portfolio HEIDI KIRJAVAINEN

website: www.heidikirjavainen.com social media: contact: www.instagram.com/heidikirjavainen www.facebook.com/PhotographyHeidiKirjavainen +358 50 917 07 24 / +32 483 48 09 53 www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-kirjavainen-990570b0 [email protected] ARTIST’S STATEMENT

Heidi Kirjavainen is an emerging Finnish visual artist and photographer working between Belgium and . She has obtained her Bachelor of Visual arts in 2015 and currently she is doing her master studies at Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp in Belgium specializing in photography.

She works mainly with staged photography, environmental and installation art. Her work of art is often a photograph of an installation made in the environment but sometimes the actual printed photograph can also take over the space in the final presentation.

Her visual style is fairly minimalistic, stripped down of all the unnecessary elements. Sometimes the works can even be quite abstract.

Heidi, 2019 THE HAIR WASHED BY THE RAINWATER

2019

The Hair Washed by the Rainwater is a formalistic study of a landscape. The simple and minimal photographs of the water, the trees, and the stones form a photographic installation that can be seen as a reconstruction of a picturesque lake landscape. Beneath the surface of the geometrical beauty, it also raises questions about how the nature around us is harnessed for economical purposes. The elements of nature are manipulated and forced into forms. The wild and free water has been taken into our swimming pools. The trees we cut to build houses. The gold-filtered photographs of stones form a mountain of wealth. Where do we draw the line between natural and artificial? What does it mean to be in a natural state? What is real nature?

More photos of the installation here:

https://www.heidikirjavainen.com/thehairwashedbytherainwater The installation exhibited at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp photography master students’ graduation show in June 2019. The exhibition was hosted by Fotomuseum Antwerp. Pigment print on MDF 140x10cm. Pigment print on MDF (variable sizes, the structure approx. 1,5 m high). Pigment print on MDF (variable sizes, the largest 80x80 cm).

The prints are on the floor.

THE BAD DAY

2016 / ongoing

pigment print, édition variée 30 (25 portfolio-sized and 5 enlargements + 2 artist’s proofs not included in the edition)

I don’t know, I just had to do it.

The picture is a result of my imagination, my subconsciousness, but it is still not only personal. The visual and mystery captures audience’s attention. There are abstract and surreal symbols in the pictures. The elements like fire, strings and a bucket are playing tricks on the viewer’s brain. The subject is not too underlining and straightforward, instead it leaves some room for interpretations, societal or individual.

Some example photos of the project in the following pages and on this website:

http://www.heidikirjavainen.com/thebadday IMPASSE

2017

“We are sorry to inform you that unfortunately you were not selected for...” (Better luck next time) HOPE

2018 TWO SUITCASES

2017 I STILL EXIST THE BEGINNING OF THE END

2016

Learning how to breathe again. I AM SORRY

2017 RAJA

2017

Raja = limit, boundary, border, margin, frontier, line, borderline, division, cutoff, edge, measure, term, ambit etc. (Google translate: fi - en) TRESPASS

2017

“At first I looked in one direction, then another. In my mind I tried to estimate the distances. How many miles in that direction should I travel in order to find silence?” NO ENTRY

2018 INVERNO

2019

pigment print, édition variée 30 (25 portfolio-sized and 5 enlargements + 2 artist’s proofs not included in the edition)

Inverno is an Italian word for winter. It’s not proven there is any etymological connection to the word inferno (Italian word for hell) even though the apparent similarities. Only the experience of the Italian people I have met. They embrace the hot summer weather and call seemingly cold and rainy winter as Inferno, the Hell.

I wanted to photograph winter. For the photographic style I chose shooting in the darkness with a flash and red filter. With this visual style I wanted to refer the Hell which is often depicted as a grim and dark place full of fire and agony.

In Dante’s Inferno however there are stages, circles, where the surroundings vary. In the third circle the gluttonous wallows in a ceaseless icy rain. The wrathful in the fifth circle lies beneath the swampy and stinking waters of the river Styx. The heretics are trapped in flaming tombs in the sixth circle. The first ring of the seventh circle - murderers, war-makers and other violent people are immersed in the river of boiling blood and fire, while in the third round violence against God, Art, and Nature has sinners scorched by great flakes of flame falling slowly down from the sky.

In the very centre of Hell, condemned for committing the ultimate sin, personal treachery against God, is the Devil, Satan, frozen mid-breast in ice. With his wings, he creates a cold wind that continues to freeze the ice surrounding him and the other sinners. The winds he creates are felt throughout the other circles of Hell.

The website of the project:

https://www.heidikirjavainen.com/inverno

THE CHOICE

2015

10 pigment prints on aluminium composite 40 x 60 cm exhibited at Imatra Art Museum in 2015

How do we choose? What do we choose? And why? The Choice focuses only on the structure and the beauty of the face. It presents a series of faces without revealing too much of the characteristics of the person behind the face.

The prints are exhibited as an installation in a dark space. Each face on the photos has been lighted separately with a small spotlight.

http://www.heidikirjavainen.com/the-choice

Example photo

The Choice exhibited at Imatra Art Museum in 2015 CV HEIDI KIRJAVAINEN SOLO EXHIBITIONS 24th December 1991, coming up 2020 The Hair Washed by the Rainwater ( Centre of Photography, Mikkeli/ EDUCATION Finland) 2019 Untitled (To Be Antwerp art festival / Hilde Cornelissen Interieur (by 2020 (expected) Master of Photography at Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium invitation), Antwerp / Belgium) 2017 Entrepreneur training (Avartum / Finnish Institute for Enterprise Management) 2019 Inverno (KOP VZW, Antwerp / Belgium) 2015 Bachelor of Culture and Arts, University of Applied Sciences, 2016 The Initial Stage (Galleria Varasjoki, Lieksa/Finland) visual arts/photography, Imatra/Finland 2015 The Initial Stage (Taidebunkkeri, Imatra/Finland) 2014 Erasmus student exchange (audio/video/multimedia studies) at Accademia di Belle Arti di Palermo, Italy WORKS IN COLLECTIONS 2010 Matriculation exam, Kallavesi Upper Secondary School, Kuopio/Finland Glo’Art Global Art Center Inc. GROUP EXHIBITIONS Basware Inc. Saimaa University of Applied Sciences coming up 2020 Rotterdam Photo Festival and World Press Photo satellite exhibition private collections (Rotterdam, Netherlands) 2018 The Art of Basware:Every Action Counts (Clarion Jätkäsaari, ) GRANTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS 2015 Kuvataiteen valtakunta (Rauma Art Museum, Rauma/Finland) 2015 Vuosirenkaat (Stora Enso Kaukopää 80 years - exhibition, Imatra Art Museum, 2019 Arts Promotion Center Finland, North Savo regional expenditure grant Imatra/Finland) 2017 Arts Promotion Center Finland, North Savo regional working grant 2013 The Art of Basware:Network (Musiikkitalo, Helsinki/Finland) 2015 Municipality of Imatra, collaborative project grant 2013 Maailma, nimetön omistus (Galleria Convoi Exceptionnel, Imatra/Finland) 2015 Saimaa UAS, thesis scholarship 2015 Finnish Cultural Foundation, expenditure grant SELECTED COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS 2014 Municipality of Imatra, collaborative project grant 2014 Municipality of Imatra, collaborative project grant 2019 Thank you, come again (the graduate exhibition of photography master 2014 William and Ester Otsakorpi Foundation, student exchange grant students, Fotomuseum Antwerp / Belgium) 2019 Masters 2019 (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp / Belgium) RESIDENCIES 2018 I have the feeling that we are not in Kansas anymore (Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium) 2016 Glo’Art / Global Art Center, Lanaken / Belgium 2015 Oikoreitti (Galleria Uusikuva, /Finland) 2015 Level Up (the graduate exhibition of Saimaa UAS fine art students,Imatra Art MEMBERSHIPS Museum, Imatra/Finland) 2014 Valmiustila, exhibition with Susan Lankinen (Galleria HOI SIE, / Nuku ry (Association for young artists and culture) Finland) The Photographic Artists’ Association Finland 2014 Hämärä (Galleria Dada, /Finland) 2014 Minkä tähden täällä ollaan? exhibition project with Nuku ry (Galleria Uusi Kipinä, /Finland)