GRYTA

Sculptor Radoslaw Gryta, who lives and works in Hikiä, Hausjärvi, was born in 1955 in Krasnik Lubelsk, Poland. The sculptor, who moved to Finland in 1979, has been a Finnish citizen since 1986. Gryta studied sculpture at the Repin Institute in Leningrad, the Academy of Arts in Krakow and the Helsinki University of Arts. In addition to sculpture, he has worked at the University of Art and Design as a teacher of plastic composition in the years 1984–1988 and at the Academy of Fine Arts as a sculpture lecturer (1988–), head of the sculpture department (1991–2003), temporary professor (1993) and as a professor (1994–). His works are, among others, in the collections of the State of Finland, the cities of Pori and Kokkola, the Tuulensuu Sculpture Park and the Helsinki Art Museum. Radoslaw Gryta received the state award for visual arts in 1989.

Radoslaw Gryta became friends with Saarijärvi-born academic Kain Tapper (1930–2004) during his teaching work. According to Gryta, it was Tapper who was the main influencer when Gryta was chosen as the next professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts. Gryta was also one of the founding members when Galleria Forum Box was founded in the summer of 1999 in Hietalahti, Helsinki, on the initiative of Kain Tapper.

Radoslaw Gryta has become familiar to many people in Saarijärvi as a long-term teacher of the Saarijärvi artists' association Siena's summer courses. The first course led by Gryta was organized in Lumpero in the summer of 1986 and regularly in different locations since 2010. Radoslaw Gryta's works have previously been seen e.g. in Saarijärvi in Tapperien Juhola Galleria Jarska's solo exhibition "In the light of an oil lamp" in 2009. Saarijärvi's newest public artwork, Poem, carved by Radoslaw Gryta was unveiled in the courtyard of the Saarijärvi School and Culture Center on June 4, 2021. In 2014, Gryta received a medal made by Kain Tapper, distributed by the Tapper Art Society, for promoting Saarijärvi visual arts.

The exhibition is curated by a working group that includes Radoslaw Gryta, visual artist and art critic Hannu Castrén, and representatives from the Tapper Art Society and the Saarijärvi Museum. The Friends of the Saarijärvi Museum has supported the museum's exhibitions and events. The exhibition is part of the program oh the Tapper Art Society's 30th anniversary year 2023.