TAIDEKESKUS AHJO, HEHKU-SPACE; KATJA KUITTINEN - HÄIVE

KATJA KUITTINEN - HÄIVE 12.11.-23.11.2025

On Independence Day a year ago, I came across an inspiring news photograph in Joensuu: hundreds of medicine blister packs arranged in more or less orderly rows. This image became the starting point for a series of watercolor works, where I began to explore the repetition and rhythm of these rows. Over time, the lines and queues evolved into ornamental patterns in woodcut prints.

Ornamentation is often used for its decorative qualities — in wallpapers, ceramics, and textiles — but can it also carry deeper meaning beyond its symbolic forms? For me, these rows gradually transformed into imagined worlds of their own. I became particularly interested in the interactions between two sides: the electric boundary, the tension, and the atmosphere that emerges when different realities meet.

The repeated semicircle, rendered in varying ways, and the act of carving it into plywood week after week became a form of meditation — a process that continues to inspire. Printmaking, as a medium, inherently embraces repetition and variation. As the carved form is printed again and again, small shifts and imperfections come to the forefront.

Alongside ornamental motifs, I have carved and printed large, more forceful shapes. I want the energy that arises from the encounter of different worlds to be felt alongside the decorative. All of the woodcuts in this exhibition have been printed entirely by hand, without a press, allowing me to stay physically connected to the force that gives rise to each piece — from beginning to end.

KATJA KUITTINEN

I am a printmaker and graphic designer based in Nurmes, North Karelia, in Eastern Finland. My work focuses on hand-printed woodcuts, where I explore repetition, rhythm, and the tactile process of making. I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree (2020) from Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, and graduated as a visual artist in 1996 from North Karelia Polytechnic.

instagram: @katjukatt / fb: @katja.kuittinen