HIPPOLYTE STUDIO
Yrjönkatu 8–10 (courtyard), 00120 Helsinki, Finland, +358 9 612 33 44, www.hippolyte.fi
Open: Tue–Fri 12–17, Sat–Sun 12–16 (Closed 21.–23.6.2013)

31.5.–28.6.2013
KATI RAPIA
The Party

I work with the photograph by cutting its proposed realities into pieces and using them to create new equivalents. I have also combined photography with drawing and painting. The long tradition of still life painting is a weight on my shoulders as I arrange the pieces into new forms of still life. My themes are initially random, ever changing settings of daily life, which together form narrative series of works. I can’t help telling stories. This exhibition could just as well be called ”A Self-portrait of the Artist at an Old Age”. In my collages the story is often formed by the spectator’s impression that something is about to happen or has just happened.

The Party -collages depict a man in his own territory, as well as his house and garden. The melancholic, mysterious ambience of anticipation is intensified into significance in the man’s surroundings, as the arrangements of the rooms, the swan in the artificial pond, the paintings and still lives keep him company. Still life or nature morte is not always something dead; nature and the mortality it provides appear as both threatening, attractive and as something to identify oneself with.

Kati Rapia received her MA degree from the University of Art and Design Helsinki in 2003 and previously graduated from Lahti Institute of Fine Arts in 1998. In addition to photography she has produced collages and published graphic novels. Rapia is interested in narratives in both spatial representations as well as the book format. She is currently preparing a book of her Party-themed collages 2011–2013.

The exhibition is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Päijät-Häme Regional Fund and the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

Kati Rapia, Pienet nokoset (A small nap)