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Kuvasto

Familiar in Front of You, Unknown Behind Your Back and The Beast Sleeps

Janne Kaitala

Päiväkoti Inkivääri, Inkiväärikuja 3, 00990 Helsinki

Indoor Sculpture

Artist Janne Kaitala (b. 1970, Tampere) has created two paintings for the Inkivääri Daycare Centre.

The world in Familiar in Front of You, Unknown Behind Your Back is layered into background and surface. From a distance, the work seems almost abstract and dominated by the colourful background, which is executed with painterly strokes. Close up, the background can be seen to contain fragments that seem like windows opening up into a landscape. Yellow outlines on the surface sketch out creatures – birds, animals, plants and mushrooms. Installed in a corner, the work extends onto two adjacent walls of the room.

The Beast Sleeps takes the forest as its starting point. The main figure is a feline. According to the artist, a forest always contains undiscovered areas and bypaths that constantly evolve and leave room for the imagination.

“The paintings are constructed around a rhythm established by large open surfaces and dense detailing. … The interplay between lines and colours creates an illusion of motion,” the artist says.

The work was produced under the Percent for Art programme, and it belongs to the collection of the City of Helsinki, managed by HAM Helsinki Art Museum.

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