Artist
Chrisse Candolin
Artist Statement
Thoughts, whether in philosophy or in science and art, cannot be separated from the thinker, as they cannot be separated from the community of thinkers and researchers either.
I have been working with installations since the early 1980s. Evolution of the human mind, especially the interconnectedness of matter and mind and the emergent properties connected to this, are the important constituents of my studies, and can be seen as allegorical reflections in my work.
I ́m wondering how we effect our world by perceiving it, experiencing it and living it. This is what I mean with the expression “matter and mind“. For where does the mind end and the “world” begin?
For me the world is not a given place outside us, my approach is phenomenological; the world unfolds in correlation with our own cultural and mental development, with our broadening cognition and knowledge. This is an interdependent and ongoing process.
My installations are allegorical and poetical reflections on this exploration. Can I express myself as an artist on this subject matter? Yes I can and I should, as art is the medium where you can approach the world from a different angle; art is therefore the special vantage point to the world.
-As Maurice Merleau-Ponty has stated: “To interpret and express “that which is” -is an endless task both for a philosopher and an artist.
I ́m not trying to find scientifical answers by my artwork, but to rather reflect questions, thougths, feelings and perspectives, also the beauty of life. My installations manifest those impressions which cannot be precisely expressed by words. They are visual markings of “that which is”.
My formal language as an artis is therefore manyfold; I like to combine serial symmetry and minimalism with natural forms, as I understand that the both extremes are representative in the nature: on the micro-level we can see strict mathematical series, forms and geometry; on the macro-level the natural forms become lush and versatile.
As an artist I feel both the form-worlds as natural and can therefore not be excluding either of them; as they represent universal forms which are also manifesting in us humans.
Upcoming Exhibition at A2-Gallery, Helsinki:
The Butterflyeffect
23.10.-10.11.2024
”Art is the face of Nature. The latter has given us being, the former has made us humans”
Friedrich Schiller
my mental hadron-collider, 2018, videoinstallation
When humans appeared on Earth, our planet had already existed for over 4.5 billion years. The emergence of life was a slow, violent, and random process; even the slightest favorable phase created small oases on Earth, where life eagerly clung with its delicate feelers.
Humans, too, were born from nature; from the earth, like all other life, as a result of millions upon millions of favorable butterfly effects. Thus, we are merely part of the chain of existence; the part of life’s force and spirit that also gained the ability to observe and evaluate itself.
Did we receive too great a responsibility from life, – I ask today, – when we forgot to cherish all life, and instead began to exploit and alienate nature and its other inhabitants, as if they were something outside of ourselves, and not part of the whole to which we also belong?
In this exhibition, my works reflect humans as part of nature, and the culture they have created; even thoughts reflect the world and nature from which we come. Therefore, we can never escape the forces of nature. It is time to sanctify nature once again; long ago, we understood that Mother Earth is sacred.
Artworks
2024
2017
2014
2013
2011
2010
2008
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1991
1990
1989
1988
About Chrisse
Master of Arts
Aalto University of industrial arts
Professional contemporary artist / Art & Science Producer
The chairperson of Athosry.fi
Member of the Integral Institute
The Desire to See -project on tour 2002-2006
The Sjählö9 the interdisciplinary group on tour 2013-2017
The Bülowstraße Berliln residency-project 2014-18
Project#2028 the interdiscliplinary group on tour 2021-