Kaija Hinkula PLAY

What would happen if we used our imagination more? Is it possible to think up new rules, or to become free from the existing ones? Is it possible to devise alternative endings?

PLAY, an exhibition of works by Kaija Hinkula, invites us to look at our everyday environment from a new perspective.  The title of the exhibition refers to playing, games and stage plays. Imagination and freedom were the starting points in the artist's work on a spatial installation of paintings where everyday elements assume new poses and positions. 

Kaija Hinkula’s artistic work operates within the field of expanded painting, where conventional two-dimensional paintings expand into spatial experiences. In this expanded field, colours, paint, and compositions familiar from the tradition of painting combine with the methods of sculpture, and time and space arts.

For the artist, PLAY is also a study of the exhibition space. In its rich play of colours, the work finds its place near the tradition of post-minimalist art, where sparse geometrical shapes are accompanied by reflections on the society. The painting installation takes over Gallery C with elements that integrate into the supporting structures of the space and extend onto the floor. The artwork can be explored by strolling inside it.

Oulu-based visual artist Kaija Hinkula (born 1984 in Kuopio) has graduated as a visual artist from the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences in 2008 and as a Master of Fine Arts from the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts in 2021. Hinkula has held solo exhibitions and participated in group exhibitions in Finland and abroad since 2007. Her works are featured in the State Art Deposit Collection and in the collections of Oulu Museum of Art. In 2021, Hinkula produced a public artwork named Kummeli (“Cairn”) to the Kanavaranta district in Oulu. Hinkula works in the K2 artist workspace in Hiukkavaara, Oulu.