Lokal Creators / Aimo Katajamäki

Aimo Katajamäki is an artist, illustrator, and graphic designer. His typical techniques include wood carving, ceramics, and metal block printing. His superhero wood sculptures depict human nature in a subtle and delicate way. They borrow their imagery from pop culture, the animal kingdom, and the afterlife. His skull characters, which have a human and frail aspect, highlight the importance of the here and now, and the transience of life. We visited his studio just a few blocks from Lokal as he was carving his new pieces for the Year of the Rabbit exhibition. Year after year, his works never cease to impress us.

Lokal Creators / Aimo Katajamäki

Aimo Katajamäki is an artist, illustrator, and graphic designer. His typical techniques include wood carving, ceramics, and metal block printing. His superhero wood sculptures depict human nature in a subtle and delicate way. They borrow their imagery from pop culture, the animal kingdom, and the afterlife. His skull characters, which have a human and frail aspect, highlight the importance of the here and now, and the transience of life. We visited his studio just a few blocks from Lokal as he was carving his new pieces for the Year of the Rabbit exhibition. Year after year, his works never cease to impress us.

L: What are some of the core things that inspire your creative process? 

Aimo: “In my work, I have been influenced a lot by popular culture. Although as a graphic artist and illustrator I have not drawn cartoons myself, very often the characters in my sculptures are familiar from the pages of comic books. Nature and animal subjects have also been very dear.”

L: What are the important principles in your work and your approach to your practice?

A: “My art is characterised by a warm humour. Handcrafting, and the direct contact with different materials such as wood, ceramics and bronze, is important to me in my work. Contrary to the mainstream of contemporary art, my works do not aim to be societally opinionated.”

L: What brought you to working with wood and three-dimensional artworks? What significance does the material have in your creation process?

A: “I had a long career as a graphic designer and illustrator before I discovered myself as a sculptor. Since I was a student, I have been creating graphic art, and it was not a very long journey from carving woodcuts to creating three-dimensional wood sculptures. Sculpting was initially a summer cottage hobby and a counterweight to the meticulous design work done on a computer. Gradually, three-dimensional handcrafting became part of my professional practice. Wood is a warm and humane material. I often use wood as the material for my sculptures, on which time and rotting fungi have already left their marks. This is how nature acts as the preliminary creator behind my sculptures, I just do the finishing of the works.”

Shop: Aimo Katajamäki’s Works

Explore: Lokal Creators

Lokal Creators / Fanny Tavastila

Fanny Tavastila is a painter who lives and works in Helsinki. We visited her studio at the Cable Factory one dark November afternoon to get a closer look at her works, which posess an innate and lyrical sense of colour, rhythm, texture and composition.

Lokal Creators / Hanni Koroma

Hanni Koroma is an award-winning Finnish interior architect and furniture designer. In her work, Koroma combines functionality and aesthetics into timeless entities where her philosophic values in sustainable and playful design meet. Koroma says that space is like a poem that evolves constantly. Her new Lohkoja cabinets are centrepieces of our summer exhibition Butterflies & Seeds. 

Lokal Creators / Minna Arponen

Minna Arponen is a jewellery designer and maker from Helsinki. Recently, she’s been fascinated by the tiny glass beads that she used to play with in her childhood. We visited her studio where most of her pieces take form, if not in her lap on tram rides through the city.

Lokal Creators / Pan Jianfeng

Pan Jianfeng is a conceptual artist working predominately with paper and ink. His background and techniques are rooted in tradition, but his works are strong and contemporary. We visited his home studio one early spring afternoon to learn more about his works in our Year of the Rabbit exhibition.

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