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A pretty colorful-winged butterfly cat flew on 20 x 20 cm paper. The cat is a linocut and the wings are hand colored. At the bottom of the picture, a piece of land was drawn in pastel, greenish-blue. Will this flying cat also have a winter landscape in the background like in a few previous ones in this series?
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Now in this picture you can perhaps distinguish the shapes and tops of the spruce trees behind the flying cat. (I couldn't really distinguish the trees from the one below). The cat is a linocut and the background is pastel. The first winter stars twinkle in the bluish sky. The size is 20 x 20 cm. This picture got its name from Lauri Pohjanpää's poem Lark's Cabin: "And the Night Was Silent And So White ".
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A new flying cat picture is in the works. Here an angel cat is hovering over a spruce forest. There should be snow on the branches of the trees, but at least you can't really make out the shapes of the trees yet. The cat is a linocut, the background, i.e. the trees and the sky, I'm doing with pastel colours.
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A butterfly playing a violin flew over the snowy ridges. The cat is a colored linocut. The background is made with soft pastels. There are blue shadows in the white snow and a high mountain or fell is on the shadow side. Only a few clouds sail in the sky. Small bushes grow along the ridges and in the lower left corner you can see two ski tracks. I found the name from Lauri Pohjanpää's poem Kevät: "The whole forest played its violins".
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A scared cat peeks out from behind a cushion on the sofa. The focal point of the picture is that cushion, with lovely, beautiful floral patterns, lilies. The cat's shadow on the wall is also beautiful. The black and white photo was taken by N. Fujii.
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Another butterfly cat is in the works. The butterfly cat playing the violin is a colored linocut, already previously printed on paper. Now I'm making a pastel background behind the cat, snow. A few cotton candy clouds can be seen in the blue sky and under the cat slopes of snow, blue and white.
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The "Summer continues, Summer" linocut (named after Lauri Viita's poem) is now also on my friends Ulla and Jorma's wall. The painting is on top of a low cabinet. I think it's a great place. You can get close to the cabinet and at just the right eye level. You can easily examine even the smallest details of the picture, the houses and stairs on the Pispala ridge, the vegetable plots along the path, the branches of the elm tree on the shore of Tahmela and the water of Lake Pyhäjärvi.
Ulla muutti "Kesä jatkuu. Kesä" -taulun paikkaa seinällään. Nyt linopiirros on television yläpuolella. Ja sehän on kunniapaikka. Sopivalla korkeudella katsella halutessa yksityiskohtia ja näkyvillä aina TV:tä katsottaessa. Ulla tekee akvarellimaalauksia, luontoaiheita, ja Pispala-lino on niiden ympäröimä. Hienoa seuraa!.
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Ulla moved the "Summer continues. Summer" painting to its new location on her wall. Now the linocut is above the TV. And that's a fine palace. At the right height to see the details and always visible when watching TV. Ulla makes watercolor paintings, nature subjects, and the Pispala lino is surrounded by them. Great company!
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Is it a butterfly or an angel cat, flying over a snowy land or a lake? In the background there is a forest edge and a few red cottages. The cat is a linocut and the background is soft pastel. There is glitter in the background, which doesn't show up very well in the photo, so I tried to take a small video. The size is 20 x 20 cm. I tried to find a name for the image from Lauri Viita's Kukunor poem and this is what I found: "Create a path on the snow as you go, come back prepared".
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The darkest time of the year is starting to pass, and a more cheerful subject is popping up. I'm thinking of making a series of rather small linocuts of butterfly cats with a pastel background. Butterfly cats fly high in the air and scan the ground below. What can they see there?
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A white and brown striped cat sits on a padded stool in front of a dressing table. The cat sees its own face in the mirror, looks pleased and asks the mirror: "Who is the fairest of them all?" And judging by the cat's expression, it seems that she already knows the answer. It's me! The cute Victorian cat was painted by the Englishman Frank Paton (1855-1909).
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Vapriikki (Museum Center in Tampere) has a large, beautiful exhibition of Aboriginal art called Songlines from Australia. Or rather, Aboriginal art created over the past ten years in communities that have been empowered by the rise in appreciation of indigenous peoples. The exhibition tells the ancient story of seven women. Really touching paintings, with recognizable dot paintings. Each picture is so harmonious and beautiful! Some of the painting marks resembled the texture of rag rug.
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You might be surprised at Art Pispala's January 2025 naive art exhibition. The exhibition includes quite a lot of naive art that the gallerist Petri Nieminen has acquired for his collections over the years (or decades). This image of a woman with a scarf was startling among all the colorful, humorous and joyful art. The artist is Jorma Turtiainen, unknown to me, perhaps not quite the mainstream of naive art. My camera also caught Martti Lehto's cat painting and Minna Lehväslaiho's birds on a tree. Terho Peltoniemi's paintings based on folklore are said to be his last - he is planning to change his style, we'll see what comes next.
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Pälkäneen Ihmissusi-Lehikoinen |
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Probably the most beloved naive artist in Finland is Martti "Huuhaa" Innanen (1931-2014). He probably actually created the popularity of Finnish naive art in the Naivists at Iittala exhibitions starting in the 1970s. The paintings are humorous and their humorous long titles have also played a large part in the popularity of the works. The pictures show slightly silly peasants, werewolves, and the Finnish landscape with its meadows and forests glows in the background. Innanen was active, also a journalist, writer and musician. Three works by Martti Innanen can be seen in Art Pispala's January 2025 naive exhibition. These are not for sale, because nowadays whoever has Innanen also keeps his/her Innanen. A fairly new biography of Innanen is on sale.
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| Etelä-Pohjalainen kosinta: "Äitee käski mun kysyy notta, tuukko sää mulle akaks?" |
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| Pispalan pelimanni |
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| Pispalan pelimannin talo nykyisin |
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jopa yksi Nikolai Lehdon graafinen työ/ even one graphic work by Nikolai Lehto |
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Bruno Maso's card/photo is called Wine Enthusiast. In the photo, a gray-and-white cat steps from a row of bottles in a wine cellar, looking very knowledgeable. Its eyes are attentive and its sense of smell is tip-top. This cat knows the vintages and aromas of wine, its softness or acidity. The cat may even take a nap on top of the row of bottles, but it's not a very warm place.
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Kikka Nyrén (b. 1951) is probably one of the most famous female artists of Finnish Naive art, also known in foreign exhibitions. Kikka Nyrén is one of the artists I followed the most in the Naivists at Iittala exhibitions, and based on her cat paintings, I sometimes dared to try cat themes myself. Kikka Nyrén's paintings have joy, hilarity, positivity, bright colors and in larger compositions also a huge amount of detail. Her original profession as an illustrator is visible in the decoration. A couple of Kikka Nyrén's paintings can also be found in the January 2025 Naive art exhibition at Art Pispala.
Koko näyttely on innostava kokonaisuus, mukana eri tekniikoita ja materiaaleja: Sauli Iso-Lähteenmäki, Matti Kuronen ja Silja Merikallio.
Avajaisuuhka oli oli ennennäkemätön, pitää käydä uudelleen kun on tilaa katsella enemmän. Hieno homma 70-vuotiaalta Saskialta! Ja avajaispuheen piti pitkäaikainen työkaveri kirjastosta: Päivi Karlstedt.
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In the exhibition of four artists at Galleria Saskia, the most interesting was of course Minna Iso-Lähteenmäki, known to me from Iittala. And her paintings, full of details, are wonderful, beautiful, flowers, birds, butterflies, clouds and fine horizons. You can immerse yourself in these landscapes.
The whole exhibition is an inspiring, with different techniques and materials: Sauli Iso-Lähteenmäki, Matti Kuronen and Silja Merikallio.
The opening rush was unprecedented, you have to visit again when there is room to see more. Great job from 70-year-old Saskia! And the opening speech was given by a long-time colleague from the library: Päivi Karlstedt.
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| Sauli Iso-Lähteenmäki |
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| Matti Kuronen |
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| Matti Kuronen |
