Kirsti Tuokko

Thu 18.1.2024

PRE SPRING 24

Kirsti Tuokko is interested in outfits, fashion, posing, visual messages, visibility, and presentation. She enjoys fine arts, painting, and dressing up. Particularly, she admires youth street fashion, domestic design, and unexpected combinations.

The figures in Tuokko’s paintings stop the viewer to examine expressions, postures, and ponder where they are coming from and where they are heading. Oil paint on plexiglass shines, and the colors radiate. The viewer can mirror themselves and be part of the painting.

Tuokko paints on the backside of plexiglass. In some paintings, she carves the drawing line into the surface of the plexiglass, and the actual paint goes on the backside of the plexiglass. During the painting process, she does not look at the front. Only when the painting is finished, she turns it around and sees the result. Colors, lines, and shapes evolve randomly, they cannot be controlled. If the figures surprise – not so pleasantly – the plexiglass can always be washed clean and start over.

Kirsti Tuokko (b.1943) is a painter living and working in Helsinki. Tuokko studied at the University of Arts and Design, now Aalto University, from 1962 to 1966. Graphic and symbolic design at the University of California, Berkeley in 1967-68. Kirsti Tuokko’s works are in the collections of HAM, EMMA, Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, Saastamoinen Foundation, Tampere Art Museum, and the State Art Committee, as well as in several public and private collections.

www.kirstituokko.fi

@kirstituokkoartist