Earth Invaders (2022) Textile Art by Sonja Salomäki

Sonja Salomäki, a textile artist and doctoral researcher at the University of Lapland. Having born and spent her whole life in Helsinki, the city with its people and phenomena are often manifest in Salomäki's works - e.g. tufted rugs, cloth collages and tapestries.

Salomäki sees textiles as surfaces and rhythms, loves colors, layers, geometry and creating space on a surface. She is inspired by old textiles or clothes (or other surfaces such as moss) which she extends, makes an intervention on or adapts to a new form.

Incessantly observing her surroundings Salomäki often births her works from the contradiction and interaction of the reigning reality and her own ideas and thinking. The urban environment with its buildings, people and  phenomena inspires her especially. Possibly her childhood district, a gray suburb, has made Salomäki a big enthusiast of colors and layers. 

To some extent Salomäki is a traditional artist-observer, scrutinizing and revealing things that other persons do not dare, realize or have time to think. The theme of her recent artistic work has been climate change and her doctoral dissertation is about the influencing possibilities of climate art from the audience point of view.  Salomäki’s art work might be looming over visual- and  textile art, but essentially she just does what is own and natural to her. 

Salomäki finds the working process very important. She uses different techniques; weaving, tufting, painting with textile colors on different surfaces and her works can change radically during the elaboration. According to her experience, the art work always changes during the making process - even in surprising ways. That's why Salomäki prefers to make her artworks herself, even though it can be painfully slow - at least compared to the modern concept of time and efficiency.

• Nationality: FINLAND
• Date of birth : 1977
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Finnish Artists