KAARINA SEPPONEN, Visual Artist

Kaarina Sepponen’s career as a multidimensional artist has gone through many changes; from the 1960’s Finnish Informalism via Expessionism to her current Concretism. Finnish critics laud her courage and creative energy in searching for – and finally recognizing - the “right” style of expressing her art. In her own words, Kaarina gets her ideas from her inner universe, nature, or, at times, from urban environment. The primary work is performed on graph paper. She develops the themes until everything extra or amorphous has been removed. The final process to produce the piece, be it a serigraphy original, painting, or a sculpture, is then rather mechanical, careful craftmanship. In Kaarina’s art, pieces consisting of many parts are predominant: the event of a picture develops in a systematic series. Kaarina employs strong color and shape contrasts that are repeated to gain a kinetic impression. In the multi-piece works, an impression of a kinetic story, or a sequence of events is achieved. She is also ready to exploits a 3D space illusion if the subject so requires. Concretism, then, is a kind of a fortress, from which Kaarina does her experimental sorties to various daring impressions of space and movement. The searching has changed into experimenting: the inner Expressionist fuels the Concretist whose task it is to steer the artist deliberately in achieving the correct goal. That is, to organize the chaos. According to a renowned Finnish art critic, Hannu Castrén, Kaarina’s most individual works consist of those in which the inner-Expressionist is in a dialogue with the inner-Concretist. “The result ... [is] ... by no means a compromise, but rather a co-crystallization resulting in a product in which the [Expressionistic and Concretistic] components cannot be separated without violence.”  “Also, the stiff-necked Concretism [as a style] has had to become malleable by [Kaarina’s]  feminine elan vital” .