One Size Fits All 1-3

 One Size Fits All, 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

One Size Fits All (detail), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

 One Size Fits All (detail), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

  One Size Fits All, 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

One Size Fits All, 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

 One Size Fits All (detail), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton.

 One Size Fits All (with cheeky monkeys), 2013. Ski jacket, cotton. 

 One Size Fits All (Installation view), 2013. Three Ski jackets, cotton.

Proud.

Art in Progress

I will be including images of my art from the recent show Back Burning at Gorman House, Canberra soon! In the meantime, here are a few photos of the artworks in progress. 

Sporting my wares- before cutting and sewing begin! 

Ski jacket now in pieces, this is where the magic starts to happen.

A different jacket now, just before sewing.

This one never quite made the cut (haha....) but did bare the brunt of my testing phase.

Finished photos to follow!

Backburning

Opening 6pm Friday 4 October Featuring work by Julia Boyd, Jacqueline Bradley, Chris Carmody, Karena Keys, Trish Roan, Adam Veikkanen & Fiona Veikkanen Curated by Annika Harding We hope you can join us for the opening of Backburning. Exhibition continues until Saturday the 9th of November.  Backburning looks back at CCAS’ Blaze ACT Emerging Artist Showcase exhibitions over the past seven years. Blaze has featured over forty-five of the ACT’s most exciting and innovative emerging artists. Instead of cramming work by all of them into the gallery, curator Annika Harding has focused on a select group of former Blaze artists who use everyday materials to create astonishing and enlightening work. These artists – Julia Boyd, Jacqueline Bradley, Chris Carmody, Karena Keys, Trish Roan, Adam Veikkanen and Fiona Veikkanen – make fascinating observations about how we perceive materials and challenge how we see the world around us. Their very unconventional works show how easy it can be to find the infinite in the ordinary.

Ya Big Softy- installation view

 Ya Big Softy. 2013. Vinyl, fabric, wire, foam, thread. 73x174x174cm. 

A few installation shots of Ya Big Softy from the exhibition Momentum at Belconnen Art Centre from earlier in the year.

 

Ya Big Softy

Ya Big Softy. 2013. Vinyl, fabric, wire, foam, thread. 73x174x174cm.

Photo: Brenton McGeachie.

 Ya Big Softy (detail) 2013. Vinyl, fabric, wire, foam, thread. 73x174x174cm.

Photo: Brenton McGeachie.

Ya Big Softy (detail) 2013. Vinyl, fabric, wire, foam, thread. 73x174x174cm.

Photo: Brenton McGeachie.

Fiona Veikkanen transforms industrially made, mass-produced objects into carefully considered handmade curiosities. Veikkanen creates unassuming objects that resonate with associations of home, personalisation and the urban environment. 

Often engaging with traditional craft techniques including quilting, crochet and pompom making, the unique and personal effects of the craft process transform objects that are typically man-made, industrial and impersonal. These altered objects, now detached from former function revel in newfound appreciation, yet retain hints of a previous use and life. 

Since the birth of my third son -Horatio -last October, I have had the absolute compulsion to create ‘The softest thing of my life’. 

Feeling strangely soft and vulnerable myself I wanted to create something that would speak of this profound softness, of malleability, private/public and self-consciousness. And of course it’s creation would be firmly based within the home. 

As well as the physical softness of an inflatable, the old blow up mattress has a particularly unpredictable and precarious nature. Subject to change, to deflate and disappoint, what more appropriate a material for the creation of this work-Ya Big Softy. 

Since graduating from the ANU School of Art in 2010 Fiona Veikkanen has exhibited with enthusiasm including two solo shows and numerous group exhibitions. Fiona has received several awards, grants and a residency at Canberra Contemporary Art Space. Most recently Fiona has exhibited in Blaze 6, a group exhibition at CCAS Gorman House, Creature Comforts, a solo show at CCAS Manuka and was included in the Australian National Capital Artist’s contemporary group show Material World.

 The Publication

Momentum (and sneak peak)

Tiny mustard coloured sneak peak of my latest making- bottom lower left!)

Hope you can make it along to the opening- next Thursday 28th March at 5:30pm at Belconnen Arts Centre. Exhibition continues until Sunday 14th April.

For more info check out the Belco Arts Centre site HERE

Soft

It all started with a find of old inflatables.

Well that, and the desire to create the softest thing I would ever make in my life.

I have been feeling an indescribably softness. so deeply inescapably soft.

 a softness that comes with the smell of sleep, milk, bodies held close. 

it is not particularly fit, and certainly not very charming.

it is something that cannot be kept.

it is unimpressive. 

it is private.

and beautiful.

My art making has never seen more interruptions and lack of solid focus. But I find myself not particularly minding. The sewing of a single seam tends to turn into a mass coordination of people, Play School, not to mention the manipulation of the material that writhes at the prospect of hurtling through the sewing machine.  

These things always take so much longer than expected. I really should know that by now.

 I hope it will be eye catching, funny, well made and beautiful -as well as inherently soft.