Karoliina Hellberg (b.1987 in Porvoo - Finland) lives and works in Helsinki. Her core frames of action are buildings and rooms located in lush and floral surroundings. The room depictions apply to both exteriors and interiors, often with window sections, open doors and portals as visual passages. In certain works, ceilings resemble skies as there are also formal detours into landscapes with mountains, cloud formations and seas.
Hellberg draws inspiration from places and their connected narratives, as well as from architecture, literature and art history. People are rarely portrayed directly. But with greetings to the classic tradition of still life, she paints traces of human actions, for example a half-full wine glass, a smoking cigarette in a small tray or flowers arranged in vases and ceramic vessels. In many of her works there is an abundance of details, sometimes fairly hidden and implemented as had they always been there. There may be people in various poses painted within old picture frames on the walls, engraved like frescoes or as antique statues with pairs on columns or as tiles with vignette-like shapes. Hellberg´s interest lies in the concept of so-called “aesthetic phantoms”, known from Yves Saint Laurent. It has become a methodical approach for her, an essential element of her pictorial vocabulary. Aesthetic phantoms appear as people or objects, physically absent and as soulful spaces and buildings or enigmatic vision of dreams. The phantoms are given their own space, where a particular, in some places surreal, beauty and the sense of a moment's state and silence gives an atmosphere of adventure, longing and poetry. An atmosphere sometimes underlined by outdoor elements like rain or dark nights with stars. Hellberg´s painting practice spans both watercolour on paper and oil and acrylic on canvas. She also transforms elements from the paintings into sculptural pieces which are cast in glass or formed in ceramics. The watercolours are created on carefully selected sheets of paper with a special surface and texture. A special characteristic of her paper works is, that she gives the sheets individual shapes, which are in close dialogue with the watercolour itself. As a compositional comment to the paintings, Hellberg has created a lithographic wallpaper with small drawings. These figures and patterns reappear in many of the other works including the glass or ceramic sculptures. Hellberg feels a preference and care for certain pictorial elements. And through repetition or material transformation and dialogue they also become symbols by themselves. Thus, “What Do You Mean, You Don’t Remember ?” become an installation portraying places and people and their relations, secrets, memories and mutual stories.
