Helena Kauppila

Overview

What if instead of being overwhelmed by complexity, we could transform our relationship with it and keep moving effortlessly and energetically forward? What if, instead of slowing down, the answer is to go deeper?

Exhibition: Relations at Risk with Relations

In 2023 I was invited to transform the welcoming hall of the Max Planck Institute MPIB into a colorful reflection on big systems themes. Adaptive rationality, collective intelligence, and deliberate ignorance were but a few of the institute’s research themes that resonated with my art. Allowing ourselves to get lost in a particular painting, we observe color relations that allow other color relations. Moving through the exhibition, the paintings could be experienced anew and in new combinations via the unique architecture.

This exhibition at MPIB was an important milestone and turning point for me personally. It allowed me to see the various aspects of my process as part of a larger whole. The disparate nature of my practice, working often on widely different color structures simultaneously, suddenly made sense. I realized that a poem I wrote, Crystalline, is actually a poem about a vision for individual work as well as for my artistic practice as a whole.

The color fantasy in my art is bordered by structures from science: the order of the genome, the aesthetics of mathematical distributions, and thoughts on the workings of the human visual systems.

Science can appear explicitly, or as the background web of ideas, the creative net that an artist relies on for the practicalities of creating complex color surfaces. In my art I draw on over a decade of deep involvement in the maths and sciences, and move freely between the discoveries of science as an aesthetic analogy, as metaphor, as play, and as a physical element. In my art, there is an attempt to negotiate the simultaneity of physical and intellectual space.

The Evolving Role of Math and Science in my Work

I love math and science, and I think that science is funny and that scientists are very creative. I love to energize people with science and colors. To convey these aspects more directly, I have begun to incorporate performance into my artistic practice.

Studio Practice

Meanwhile, my studio practice in itself has also become increasingly performative. The roots in this case lie, however, not in performance, but in the concept of physicality. I have always felt that a painting can influence my physical and psychological well-being in a space. It would not be surprising if my intuition was on the right track: more than half of the human brain is devoted to visual processing!

In the painting, or constructing, phase, I am primarily concerned with the surface structure and in creating a work that is able to communicate joy.  Thus I make many explorations to develop my understanding of color layering and arrangement.  I also observe how people react to my work in a space, and make a note when a work invites repeated views or a desire to physically engage with it, such as by touching or rearranging.

Incorporating a science or data structure into a painting places several restrictions on the formation of layers and the ability to erase mistakes. Organic forms and colors place their own, and different, restrictions. Navigating these challenges is a key focus of my work.

The entire success of my artistic process rests on a continuous discovery of new color ideas. For this reason, my practice involves working on several types of paintings in parallel.

“Nature exists for us humans more in depth than in the surface. Therefore, into our vibrations of light, represented by reds and yellows, we need to introduce sufficient blues to make one feel the air.” - Cézanne to Bernard, 1904

In my work, I also explore the depth and complexity of our experiences in nature. What I do is exaggerate the sizes of color elements to create a symphony in space and time.

Catalog (Deutsch), (English)
Recent Interview (Deutsch)