Kaarina Kaikkonen’s biography

Kaarina Kaikkonen is one of Finland’s most important artists. She is best known for her inventive use of second-hand clothing pieces (mostly jackets & shirts) and molded craft paper to transform public places like churches, streets and plazas into memorable jacket installations.

Kaarina Kaikkonen – *Shadow*, 1999, Tampere, Finland

Kaarina Kaikkonen – *Virtaavien vetten tykö* (Towards Flowing Waters), 2006, Jyväskylä, Finland

The environment is incorporated into these installations in some way, resulting in a beautiful, colorful cloth landscape. Each garment individually tells a story as an extension of its past wearer, and as a group, they come together to create a history and visual retelling of their space.

Born in 1952 in Iisalmi, Finland, Kaarina Kaikkonen studied medical physics briefly at the University of Kuopio before switching to the Finnish Academy of Fine Arts (Bildkonstakademin), where she graduated with top honors in 1983.

Kaarina Kaikkonen – *Departure*, 2003 – VIII biennale dell’avana, Italy

Kaarina Kaikkonen – *A Path*, 2004, Umedalen Sculpture Park, Umeå, Sweden

Inspiration & more

Kaarina is an artist whose work is primarily in the sculpture niche. Her best-known masterpiece is the installation Way comprising 3000 men’s jackets on the steps of Helsinki Cathedral in 2000. Kaarina Kaikkonen’s main inspirations are her parents – mom and dad.

Kaarina Kaikkonen – *Way*, 2000, Helsinki Cathedral, Helsinki, Finland

Therefore, the thematic flow of most of her renowned works involves stuff she associates with her parents. Having lost her dad to a heart attack, for one, the sculptress believes that using recycled clothing as her medium offers comfort much akin to her father’s old garments.

Global recognition

Thanks to several magnificent public works, both small and large-scale, she has done in her home country Finland and elsewhere worldwide (read: US, UK, Canada, Japan, and Cuba), she is now a household name in the art world.

Kaarina Kaikkonen – *The Gate*, 2011, IL Caos-Conflicts, Collateral Event Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy

That’s why it comes as no surprise that her collection has been featured in myriads of world-class museums all over the world, most notably Borås Art Museum, Sweden; Wyoming University Art Museum, US; Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland; and Aine Art Museum, Tornio, Finland, just to name a few.

Notable work

Kaarina Kaikkonen’s installations and artworks are monumental and glorious both in creativity and size. The central theme in all her work is using recycled stuff to relive the essence of the previous owner and add nuances to public places. As such, her work is not only approachable but also evokes complex yet ambiguous images.

Artist Kaarina Kaikkonen Interview: A Father, a Mother & a Child | Louisiana Channel

Watch this video on YouTube

27 min 38 sec

She’s been known to use neckties, shirts, coats and even shoes to breathe more life into her objects, with notable examples being Shadow, an impressive piece she did back in the late 1990s, an installation for the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Santiago, Chile and others.

Kaarina Kaikkonen - Shadow, 1999-2015 — Kaarina Kaikkonen – *Shadow*, 1999, Tampere, Finland

Awards and Recognition

Kaarina Kaikkonen’s contribution to the art world hasn’t gone unnoticed. In her early years as an artist, she managed to snag the National Visual Arts Prize in 1989.

She was subsequently awarded the Public Prize in Den Haag Sculptuur in 2004, the Finland Prize of Art (2001, 2013), knighted First Class by Order of the Lion of Finland, and received Honorable Mention at the 11th Cairo Biennale in 2009.