KRISTINA RISKA

NEW WORKS

11 October - 18 November 2018

Kris­ti­na Ris­ka finds ar­ti­s­tic in­spi­ra­tion in the tra­ces pe­op­le lea­ve be­hind in his­tory and in their en­viron­ments. Her in­tuition for the soft raw­ness that only clay can of­fer, and her sur­round­ing en­viron­ment which re­flects the co­lours of the Nor­dic lands­ca­pes is ma­te­ria­lized in the ob­jects. Ri­ska’s ce­ra­mic pie­ces en­ab­les a re­la­tion with the au­dien­ce beyond the simp­le act of con­temp­la­tion, and of­fers an al­ter­na­ti­ve way of see­ing and in­te­rac­ting with sculp­tu­res. Due to the hu­man sca­le of the ob­jects one can explo­re the phy­si­cal com­po­nents and expe­ri­en­ce the ob­jects as equal or at least clo­ser to us. This in­te­rac­tion is cau­sed not only by the mo­nu­men­tal size of the sculp­tu­res, but also Ri­ska’s crea­tion of the ob­jects fa­sci­na­ting shapes and excep­tio­nal sur­faces.

The two lar­ge sca­le works re­pre­sented in the ex­hi­bition were created du­ring her re­si­dency ear­li­er this year at Oslo Na­tio­nal Aca­de­my of the Arts.

Kris­ti­na Ris­ka (b. 1960 in Hel­sin­ki, Fin­land) cur­rent­ly li­ves and works in Hel­sin­ki. Ris­ka is a gra­dua­te of the De­part­ment of Ce­ra­mic Art at the Uni­ver­sity of Art and De­sign, Fin­land. She is the reci­pi­ent of nu­merous awards, in­clu­ding: The Sta­te of Fin­land’s Suo­mi Prize in 1995; the Me­dag­lia D’Oro in Faen­za, Italy, 1995; a sil­ver med­al at the In­ter­na­tio­nal Ce­ra­mic Con­test in Mino, Ja­pan, 2002 and an Ho­no­ra­ry Award in 2008; and wor­king grants from both The Sta­te of Fin­land and The Fin­nish Cul­tural Foun­da­tion. Ri­ska’s work has been in­clu­ded in nu­merous ex­hi­bitions world­wi­de and placed in many pub­lic and pri­va­te col­lections, in­clu­ding The De­sign Mu­se­um, Hel­sin­ki; The Saasta­mo­ni­nen Foun­da­tion, Fin­land; The Uls­ter Mu­se­um in Bel­fast, Ire­land; and the Gifu Mu­se­um, Ja­pan, among many ot­hers.