kaija art
Get to know me
Hi, I am Kaija
An artist based in Germany
I come from a family of artists and have lived in and with art since I was a child. Nevertheless, it was only after a successful working life as a business expert in Frankfurt am Main and the birth of my 3 children that I found my real calling, painting.
My grandfather was a very talented artist from Austria. He painted mostly realistic landscapes and portraits that my grandmother would then sell at the local market. He would have loved to have become a famous artist however achieving such dreams was difficult during post-war times. Apart from my grandpa my twin sister, whom I am incredibly close with, studied art for many years painting in a more expressionist style.
In contrast, even if I have always been enchanted and fascinated by those great artists like Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Richard Burlet as well as their abstract-figurative working methods, I found my true passion for painting relatively late. Despite the fact that this urge for creative development has been bubbling in me for a long time and I was full of ideas and energy, I only allowed myself to live out my creative side about 4 years ago. This was because I became a mom very early on and it was more important for me to be able to stand on my own two feet, safe and secure, in order to be able to offer my son a great start at life. An artist's uncertain life path was therefore not an option at the time.
But the creativity wanted to get out of me and at some point, especially thanks to my sister, it was unstoppable. Although her style is quite different from mine she showed me that you can free yourself with artistic designs, paint something from the soul and also create something entirely of your own. I remember when I painted with oil paint for the first time. There were two glasses of poison green liquid that ran throughout the picture. It was love at first sight, not for the motif, but for the oil paint. From the beginning, oil paint was the medium that gave me the feeling of unstoppable creativity as if my innermost feelings would flow straight from me, through my brush and come to rest as an image before me. It gave me joy and happiness straight away and every time I paint with oil paint, I feel great excitement and gratitude.
I have also been hugely experimental with my styles of art over the years trying so many various mediums from acrylic paint in various consistencies, colored inks, alcohol ink, modeling clay, sprays, soft pastels, and oil pastels, also drawn with charcoal pencils and painted with watercolor. Although all these methods of expression were interesting and fun in the end I have always come back to oil painting as my overall favorite medium. I appreciate its sensual quality and complex transparency. The versatility of the medium enables the inclusion of mixing techniques, such as material collage. In this way, it complies with their concept of design and their willingness to experiment. But also working with digital media is completely new and particularly exciting for me. This opens up completely new possibilities for me to put parts of my painted artworks together digitally in a collage and to reinvent them.
My Finnish roots and my early experience as a mother that lives for her kids serve as a huge inspiration when it comes to my work. I am very interested in the role of women in the Nordic countries as they have influenced my behavior for so long. These women represent a cool, assertive, and rationally acting impression. The reason for this is that their traditional education is aimed at making the children strong for life. Exercising self-discipline, suppressing feelings, and, especially for girls, not to become dependent on a man but to be financially independent is part of that education.
However, in my eyes, this ideal conception of this education is sometimes contrary to human nature and often achieved at the expense of the human soul, which tends to wither if its dreams and passions cannot be fulfilled. I, therefore, perceive my pictures as a request to free women of their inner bonds and as an encouragement to not only allow them to free their emotions, but also perceive them as strength.
I would not consider myself to be a typical feminist who generally rejects the Archaean distribution of roles. I believe it is the privilege of a woman to be able to submerge herself in the role of housewife and mother as well as in the role of an independent and professionally successful woman. A balance that is not easily achieved for a lot of women. When it comes to my art I wish to celebrate these women and liberate the few that may have suppressed their true desires, dreams, and fantasies for the benefit of their families or because they felt they may not possess the eroticism or raw passion they may have once had. I wish to remind these women of the beauty, strength, bravery, seductiveness, mystery, and romance that live within them all.
With my structured geometric shapes but also abstracted colored areas, which are part of all my paintings and for me represent the balance between chaos and order and the broad spectrum of human feelings, I would like to invite the viewer to get lost within this picture. With my harmonious style and vibrant choice of colors, I want to awaken feelings and invite you to dream. Every time that I paint I feel that my positive energy flows out of my body and into the work of art. I hope that the viewer feels this life, happiness, warmth, and harmony I choose to share through my art.
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