Tiina Pyykkinen on disturbing and reframing perception

Tiina Pyykkinen is a Helsinki-based artist currently in residence at the Triangle Arts Association. The residency is supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

Pyykkinen primarily uses painting as her medium, focusing on the act of seeing. Her works prominently feature themes of memory, time, and the human body. Pyykkinen's hologram-like paintings, which have mirror-like surfaces, change according to their surrounding environment, altering the information they convey. Her artworks can be described as disturbances or catalysts that challenge the formation of a clear and uniform conception.

FCINY’s Sini-Ida Heiskanen visited Tiina at her studio in DUMBO during the Triangle Open studios to hear more about her artistic practice and her time in New York. 

Your work often engages with the act of seeing and explores how perception can be both complex and deceptive. What inspired you to center your practice on these themes?

I’ve always been interested in how a painting can disturb one’s perception and how it can function as a question about what we perceive and how we perceive it. 

The qualities of different materials, such as the multicolor phenomenon and the emphasis on light and movement, have been at the core of my work for many years. I’m interested in how an artwork can condition the viewer to move around it and, through this, create a connection with their own body and changes happening in the environment.

What do you hope viewers experience when encountering your work?

My paintings deal with the theme of interaction. I’m interested in the concepts of the embodied mind, the body’s memory, and temporality, as well as the ways in which we communicate. These themes are visualized in the paintings, where I aim to create a situation in which the painted imagery, the phenomena of color, and changes taking place in the surroundings interact to form an overall narrative.

I have used a mirror-like surface as the base for my works, where the painted layers and the mirror image construct a pictorial view. The reflection of the surroundings and the color-changing phenomenon of the colors reveal and conceal visual information, aiming to condition the viewer to understand their perception in relation to themselves and the prevailing situation.

This material, or should I say a process of painting with light, has been a passion for me since my student days. I’ve used many such materials that absorb or reflect light very strongly. With these choices, I aim to highlight that a painting is not just a passive object in a space but a viewing experience based on interaction, connected to place and time, and the observer's physiology and experience.

Can you share what you are currently working on during your residency?

I’m currently collaborating with a laboratory at Kask University in Ghent, Belgium, on a research project called Ecology of Color. Our collaboration focuses on the study of iridescent biostructures and their application to my artistic work. The structural colors produced in the laboratory mimic nature's ways of communicating through light, which is something I’m highly interested in.

During my residency, I’m conducting research focused on learning more about how we understand and receive experiences of light and how this can be expressed through language and communication.

How has the residency experience at Triangle affected your current work?

I believe that every new working environment, meeting new colleagues, and breaking away from familiar surroundings open up new ways of seeing, experiencing, and interpreting the world.

The Triangle residency has given me the opportunity to work in an inspiring working environment and to share my ideas and interests with other arts professionals. This has developed my way of thinking as well as my artistic practice.

What is waiting for you after New York?

After the residency, I will continue my artistic practice and the research project which is the collaboration with the laboratory at Kask University. In addition, I will be preparing for an upcoming exhibition which takes place in the spring 2025.

Interview and photos: Sini-Ida Heiskanen

Published: November 20, 2024