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Lokal Creators / Inka Kivalo

We visited the studio of Finnish textile artist Inka Kivalo, who’s wonderful works have been shown at Lokal for years now.

She mainly works with jacquard weaving techniques to create painting-like wall tapestries that are windows into her colourful worlds. Her works are presented and available at Lokal.

Lokal Creators / Inka Kivalo

We visited the studio of Finnish textile artist Inka Kivalo, who’s wonderful works have been shown at Lokal for years now.

She mainly works with jacquard weaving techniques to create painting-like wall tapestries that are windows into her colourful worlds. Her works are presented and available at Lokal.

“I weave and embroider, and build sculptures. Sometimes I make scarves, and then at other times jewellery. But really my main works are tapestries.

The making sculptures, of animals and figures, is somehow liberating. They consist of very thin threads. I build and twine and compress and sculpt the strings, and in that way I create the shape. There’s a kind of childlike quality to these sculptures., and I want to preserve that. I reckon it’s fun somehow.

In making tapestries, the process begins with sketches. I make a large number of sketches. I have a sort of time of drafting. I build the warp, and then work after work I make. Weaving tapestries is rather slow. It’s tremendously important for me that the handwriting of my weave is alive. I mend the pieces and manipulate he surface throughout the weaving process. And often the solutions I make at the loom can be terribly complicated. In hindsight, I always wonder; how did I even make this part here?

It is important to me to see myself in a tapestry, and that comes from the trace of my hand. It comes from solutions in colours. The yarns are important. I build my own yarn from many thin threads because I want to make the surface vibrate in some way.”

Shop: Inka Kivalo’s Work

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