Interview with Riitta Hellén-Vuoti

Riitta Hellén-Vuoti (b. 1959) is a Finnish artist, living and working in Kuopio, Finland. By education, she is a licensed medical specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy. She has been artistic since her youth and started dedicating more time to painting and poetry around the year 2000.
Her artistic focuses remain in painting and poetry. Her artworks have been on display in various galleries around Finland since the year 2000 and more recently also in London, Milan, Madrid, New York and Paris (2020-). She is still a practising psychiatrist but also becoming increasingly well-known as an artist.

How would you describe yourself and your artwork?

I am (b. 1959) a Finnish artist living and working in Kuopio, Finland. I am interested in – and inspired by – the human being and the never-ending complexities of life. In art, it is possible to deal with all the questions and concepts more intuitively. My paintings and my poems are inner images. They can sometimes be even the same. I call them poem-painting.

How do you go about beginning a new piece? Do you have an idea already in mind, or do you start working with materials or sketches to find the departure point?

I paint without plans and requirements. I have to paint to be myself.

When do you think your most prolific time of day or week is?

Maybe mornings are the best time to paint.

What is a barrier you as an artist overcame? Is there anything that enabled you to develop your work as an artist in your life?

I also appreciate my paintings which I don’t like. My education as a licenced medical specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy has developed me.

Did you have an idea of what you wanted to create right from the beginning?

I had no idea.

What is the meaning or creative inspiration for your work? We’re curious what the narrative or story is to what you are producing?

I am working towards my understanding of life. I have to paint to be myself.

Besides your artworks, are there any other things in life that your voice as an artist may consider vital or valuable? What makes you joyful and creative, in other words?

I am deeply grateful when I get to paint in my atelier.

Are there any exhibitions or places where people can see these beautiful creations in person soon? Anything on the horizon?

My paintings can be viewed in my Gallery, Galleria Tila33, in Kuopio, Finland. Monat Gallery in Madrid, Spain will present my paintings at the Luxembourg Art Fair 16 - 18.9th September 2022. I will participate in a group exhibition at the Monat Gallery in the spring of 2023.

Website: www.riittahellenvuoti.fi