Noir

Veera Kulju creates ceramic sculptures and reliefs by hand. Her idiom effortlessly refers to both natural forms and genres that have utilized nature motifs. Her relationship to these genres is self-aware, even mischievous. Compared to, for example, the decorations of jugendstil, Kulju has a more liberal approach. As she creates the shapes by hand, they don’t need to be regular or reproducible.

As per its title, the Noir exhibition focuses on the colour black. The artworks on display are either made from black clay or have been glazed black. Their mood is nocturnal and mysterious. Their world is that of secret parties, night clubs and hotel suites. On the other hand, they could also come into a nightly bloom in the middle of a dark rainforest.

Veera Kulju is a visual artist who also works with design. Here, her selection of materials also includes textiles. As a contemporary artist, she is specifically  a sculptor utilizing ceramics. She is known for her white popcorn artworks, but in recent years, popcorns have made way for more mysterious and dark milieus. Her previous solo exhibition in Veikko Halmetoja’s ARTag Gallery in 2018 was almost all white; this one is all black.

Kulju’s art has also been on display in New York at the Hostler Burrows gallery and in 2019, her sculpture was acquired by the Swedish Nationalmuseum after her solo exhibition in Stockholm.