Tia Keobounpheng Learned to weave in Oulu, Finland, when she was 18 years old. Sitting next to two older Finnish women in a community -wife center, she hardly worked for hours, a word. Two decades later, after university studies in weaving, architecture and design, the memory of the artist -based artist connects her first lesson with her ancestral country and his ancient artisanal traditions.
Keobounpheng weaves colorful threads on wooden panels to create precise geometries in vibrating color. She says: “My exploration to geometry coincided with learning that in my well-known family histories there was an oppressed Sámi descent because of the line of my great-grandmother, which completely changed the story of our Finnish heritage.”
The Sámi people of Northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola peninsula of Russia are a indigenous group with their own unique languages and a traditional, semi-nomadic livelihood that includes practices such as reindeer and sheep hat, coastal fish and fur-staircase.
Historically, because the Scandinavians mainly lived South and Sámi communities in the north, the contact was unusual. But by the 19th century, Scandinavian governments began to claim sovereignty across the north, aimed at the Sámi, which were increasingly considered ‘primitive’ or ‘backwards’. Their language was forbidden and suppressed a lot of cultural customs when they were forced to assimilate themselves in Scandinavian society.
During the Pandemie, Keobounpheng helped her son at a distance during a geometric class, and a certain sentence caught her attention. “Geo means earth, so geometry is just measuring the earth,” the teacher said.
“These words … changed my worldview and reminded me that under rigid linear laws there is a whole basis of forgotten circular consciousness,” says the artist. “Apart from the powerful conceptual connections, I was able to draw out of geometry as a visual language to understand and express a circular, extensive worldview, the physical movements of turning the compass awaken slightly deep within me.”
The compositions of Keobounpheng are both exactly and intertwined, because forms mix in other forms, neither completely independent nor just an all-over pattern. She describes the physicality to move a needle and wire back and forth through paper or wood as a means to sew this worldview metaphorically into her muscle memory.
The father of the artist is a self -skilled architect and she took a modernist lens. “Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko and Josef and Anni Albers were early favorites of mine in my teenager and young adult years,” she tells Colossal. “Nowadays, Agnes Martin, Hilma Af Klint and Sámi Artist Outi pieski Are my anchors of inspiration. “
Each piece requires the first planning to map the geometry, drill holes, select the color palette and switch on a black and white framework. But often, “all my best intentions or visions for what the work will start to release and sometimes fly away,” she says. “There is always a point, with every piece, where I have to vomit my plan and make room for the threads.”
The work of the artist can be seen in the Weinstein Hammons Gallery stand Expo Chicago at the end of April. She is currently also participating in Nordic echoes – Tradition in contemporary art bee Scandinavia HouseIt runs from 5 April to 2 August in New York City and also includes work by Sonja Peterson. Find more about Keobounpheng’s website And Instagram.
