Sakari Kannosto (b. 1973) lives in Vantaa and works in Helsinki and Espoo, Finland. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts 2005. Kannosto has exhibited widely since 1998, and his work has been shown in various fairs in the USA. After completing an artist-in-residence at the Arabia Art Department in Helsinki, he became a permanent member in January 2020. His work can be found in the collections of Aalto University, the Finnish State Art Deposit, and the Art Museum of Tampere. He Is represented by Hostler Burrows Gallery in the USA. His latest solo exhibition was at Hostler Burrows’s HB381 Gallery in New York in 2022, and the next solo exhibition will be in Gallery Sculptor in Helsinki in 2025. Kannosto is also a Lecturer of Fine Arts at Omnia in Espoo. In 2014 he was granted an honorary award for environmental education.
Sakari Kannosto’s fantastical and figurative sculptures are inspired by fables, ancient mythologies and Finnish folklore. His part human, part mermaid, part animal, part plant beings refer to the myth that animals can shape shift, traveling between worlds as protectors. Imbued with whimsy and humor, Kannosto’s work is also underscored by a deep environmental consciousness. By reimagining a future where humans unite with nature to create adaptive, survivalist families, he addresses the potentially disastrous environmental consequences brought on by the industrialized world. Kannosto has used many different materials in his career. Now his primary focus is on ceramic sculptures and large-scale installations.
Visit Sakari Kannosto’s website and Instagram page.
Featured work
Children of the Flood, 2022
Oblivion, 2023
Raiders of the cursed Earth, 2019
From the Stars, 2023
To me, stoneware is a paramount material and medium. Since the beginning of time, people have marked and molded the most important information on clay. According to ancient traditions, clay has functioned as the carrier of wishes and dreams for fertility, harvest, and prey. Ceramics is also a tool for creativity, play, humor, and storytelling. I am interested in clay as a conveyor of strong narrative expression and as a performer of provocative forms. I investigate the possibilities of clay acting as a light- and gravity-challenging medium of expression, instead of its traditional nature as a heavy, earthy material. Combining clay with other materials, such as glass and steel, has the potential to bring out new, airy dimensions in its use.
I use the coiling technique to build works of all sizes. They are influenced by art history, folk tales, and popular culture. I often combine elements from my everyday life into my art. I strive for a clear and representational language of form that still maintains expressiveness and improvisation with a rugged appearance. I move in a wide range of subjects in my works and try to find something new and significant for myself with every new topic. I hope that my works and hand print will still remain recognizable through different exhibitions and changes in subject matter, methods, glazes, and materials.
I often let intuition guide my work. I start molding and let my feeling and the clay lead the way. Sometimes, the most imaginative relationships, shapes, and entities emerge that I couldn’t have seen at the beginning.
Environmental themes and our challenge as humanity to find sustainable development in our everyday lives have been significant elements of my storytelling recently. I want to combine several different levels of meaning with my sculptures, and I strive to find a new kind of narrative created in the field of ceramic art.
