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Kirsi Salo is a Visual Artist born in Finland in 1984 and currently living and working in her studio in rural farm in County Kerry, Ireland. Most of her works are inspired by people and their internal worlds.

 

Kirsi is and award-winning artist and her artworks have been exhibited Internationally in Galleries and Non-conventional spaces. 

Kirsi's paintings hang in Private collections around the world Including Europe, US and Africa. 

Hambly and Hambly, Enlightment 15 Winner interview

I'm alone in my room between two worlds.
- Sylvia Plath

Vagabonds, 2022 Oil and Charcoal on Canvas, 80 x 80 cm.jpg

I'm painting life and I'm healing myself, there's not much else to it. 

I love animals, birds, how the trees whisper in the morning wind and how the cows quietly graze on the fields. There's so much beauty, but at the middle of this beauty, there's still also trauma.  Pain that sits at the core of one's being, trauma from childhood from being neglected and forgotten, for growing up and never belonging.

For still not belonging as an adult and sadness for those who share similar experiences. Feel like they don't fit anywhere, for those who had to grow up too fast and develop incredible strength to get through all of it. There's beauty in that strength, but it's often the same strength that makes us put up our defences, makes us cold and cynical as adults. 

I still want to see beauty and magic. I think it has always been by innate exceptional ability to see beauty around me, even in the most grim situations. I think it's the ability to notice the small sparkles of joy that brought me through trauma, essentially helped to survive.

So it might be contradictory to paint pretty birds and childhood trauma at the same time, like they're two very separate things. They're not. 

We all have souls that are healing and to me the only cure to that is beauty and magic. Still believing behind all the pain that there is still beauty and magic in the world and they're the universe hand out to heal us. I desperately want to tell that to others; that I can see your pain, hot and raw, cause it's my pain also. 

I can see your solitude, cause I know it like the back of my hands too. I know down to my core how it feels to never belong. But I also desperately want to tell them that there is so much beauty around us if we took a moment to look. Magic we saw when we were kids, magic we can still see if we let our adult guard down for a moment. 

Majestic old cow standing in her field like an ancient royalty. Birds in every colour of the rainbow, trees singing of ancient days. 

Yes, there is darkness, but there is all this light also. And you're strong so incredibly strong. 

Exhibitions and Awards

  • 2021-2022  Hambly and Hambly, Enniskillen, Enlightment Exhibition and STARK-Exhibitions 

  • 2021-2022 Tralee County Museum, "Nostalgia" -Exhibition  

  • 12-18th  Boomer Gallery,  "What is Art- Exhibition" London, UK

  • 2021 Tralee Art Group  "Nature", Co. Kerry  

  • 2021  Hambly and Hambly, Enniskillen, John Richardson Award Exhibition

  • 2021 Feature, Contemporary Art Curator Magazine 

  • 2021 Outdoors pop-up exhibitions, Tralee County Art Chamber

  • 2021 Art Atelier Gallery, DAGAZ Art Second Life- Exhibition

  • 2020 Third Place in Professionals Category- Art Materials Company National Art Competition 

  • 2020 Art In the Park, Virtual Group Exhibition, Ireland

  • 2020 Old Vintage Market, Local entrepreneurs showcasing, Killarney, Kerry

  • 2015 “I dream in Colour” Private Exhibition, Woodberry Gallery and Café, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

  • 2001-2004 Annual Group Exhibitions, Tampere City Library, Finland    

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