Inkeri Makkonen

"In me remembers"

Taidesalonki, 2018 Paintings and Textile Art

Welcome! Step into Memory’s Holy Room – my grandfather’s old boat and my life’s scribbles and stiches sewn into it in jute twine.

Twenty years ago the subject started to weigh down on me. In 1999 with the help of Alfred Kordelin Foundation’s grant I started to collect material for “Finnish wooden boat – artifact and experience”. For the last two and a half years I have been darning the boat with jute twine.

To me, the boat is full of meaning, symbolism and memories of my grandparents, my childhood family and my life. The work is also important to me personally in ways that I cannot consciously capture.

In many of the parts the boat is very fragile and while darning the cracks I might have opened new ones. This mending will never be finished!

The unnamed emotions awakened by this work I paint.
The base material and the paints direct my mind where they want. I wonder from one image space to another, and the story continues, as long as I am willing to go along. It feels like everything was created accidentally.

The Kalasatama worksite visible from my window interjects into the images. The landscape holds so much power it is ready to disintegrate, and it feels like I am testing how much of it I can use before I reach the limit.