The exhibition presenting the spring thesis works features a range of works from spatial art to paintings, created using a variety of techniques – in all their beauty and delicacy. The expression of the unique artists entering the art field is both skillful and eye-opening.

In addition, the Stone Sculpture course, guided by Ville Mäkikoskela, taught traditional stone carving techniques and materials. The course covered content from splitting and segmenting to final finishing. The materials used were Carrara marble and domestic stone types.

This year, the Summer Exhibition will also expand beyond the walls of the art school, when a new Wood Sculpture Park will be opened in cooperation between the art school and the city hall in the forest between the art school and the city hall on the corner of Paasikivenkatu and Alpinkatu. In the summer course, directed by sculptor Pasi Eerik Karjula, students have created a diverse ensemble of sculptures and environmental art works for the area, the main material of which has been utilized as trees that have fallen and been felled in the city's storms. In the structures and joints of the works, an effort has been made to avoid artificial materials and to utilize the versatility of wood and other natural materials, such as self-collected Kankaanpää clay.

The Wood Sculpture Park operates as a laboratory for sustainable environmental art as part of the Art, Technology and Sustainable Tourism project led by Kankaanpää Art School. The TTKM project is a joint ESF+ project of SAMK, LAB University of Applied Sciences and Tampere University, as well as Lauhanvuori-Hämeenkangas, Saimaa and Salpausselä Geoparks, which aims, among other things, to strengthen the professional skills of visual artists, promote cross-disciplinary cooperation and open new perspectives on environmental art: https://ttkm.samk.fi/

The Wood Sculpture Park invites you to consider how weather conditions and the environment affect wood and other natural materials and change works over time. Can a work of art be constantly changing in nature? What about restoring its environment through its decaying wood material? And at what point does a work of art cease to exist? The Wood Sculpture Park offers a concrete and living stage for these questions.

For further information, please contact Meri Lehto +358 44 212 7630
SAMK Kankaanpää Art School Gallery opening hours: June-July Wed 12–18, Thu-Fri 12–16, Sat 11–14 and August Mon-Fri 9–16