Eyes as Big as Plates – New York is the third chapter in our ongoing collaborative venture that started two years ago. We did a little dig in the archive to update new followers and other curious cats on the background of Eyes as Big as Plates.
Riitta and Karoline met during an artist residency in Sandnes, Norway in May 2011, where the first part of Eyes as Big as Plates was produced in collaboration with local senior heroes, sailors, retired agronomes and 90-year old parachuters:
As the series got its first exposures abroad during the summer of 2012, the production also moved over the boarder to Ikonen’s home turf in Pohjois-Karjala. Part two of Eyes as Big as Plates presents Pohjois-Karjala seniors through references of familiar characters and protagonists of Finnish folklore, infused with the participating local seniors’ own stories and personal relationship to folklore, myths and imagination:
Beautiful!
Dear Audrey,
Thank you so much!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline
Amazing.
Thank you Romaine!
R+K
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to reconnect to our imagination
Dear Emma, the pleasure is all ours! Thank you so much for your lovely comment, we feel like the luckiest artists around to have the opportunity to do this project!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline.
These are some of the most extraordinarily beautiful photographs I’ve ever seen.
Many congratulations to all.
Dear Susan, that is absolutely fantastic to hear, thank you so much!
Warmest wishes from Riitta and Karoline.
Wow! So inspiring! I love how the seniors are a part of their landscape, their land. Thank you!
Dear Katja,
Thank you so much!
Warm regards from New York / Oslo,
Riitta + Karoline.
I am profoundly moved – hilarious, healing, beautiful and infinitely connective. Thank you.
Dear Kathleen, we love to hear that our work makes you feel this way, that’s basically the reason we are doing this project, reactions like this makes it so worth it!
Thank you!
Karoline & Riitta.
Absolutely fantastic and beautiful!
Thank you so very much Lynn!
Warm wishes,
Riitta and Karoline.
Those are the most beautiful models I’ve ever seen in a photograph!
Wow, Denise, thank you so much – how fantastic to hear!
Warm and humble greetings,
Riitta and Karoline
Really magical. Thank you.
Fantastic to hear, thank you Julie!
R+K
Onneksi olkoon – congratulations! These images are simply wonderful, and so spot on in communicating the natural yet fantastic, whimsical, relationship us Scandinavians often have with nature and natural elements. They also strongly remind me of Hans Silvester’s West African portaits, of flora used in tribal tradition/ornament.
Thank you again for taking and sharing these images!
I thought too they reminded me of Hans Silvester. Strangely beautiful…especially the naked ones. Clothes seem superfluous.
Dear Jane, thank you for your lovely comment and for introducing us to Hans Silvester’s work – it is absolutely beautiful and an honor to be compared with!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline.
Dear Inari, thank you so much! Kiitos pallion! What a lovely comment, and we just got another comparison to the beautiful work of Hans Silvester – we were not aware of these works until now, so thank you very much for that tip!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline.
I absolutely love these! Thank you for the work you’re doing. How long will you be in New York? I’ll be there in mid-April and would love to see where the work is and what you’re doing if you’re still there!
Dear Kendall, thank you very much for your lovely comment! We are in residence until end of April, and our closing reception is next Wednesday (24th)- if you are still in town, you are so very welcome to join us!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline.
Put a BIG smiiile on my face….Beautiful..Surprising..Adorable..Sad..Funny..Qirky..Inspiring as the Muse..
& it made my Birthday <3 Thank you..what a Humbling project..keep em comin <3
Dear Cariotta, your comment made our day, thank you! And we are sorry that our response come so very late! Happy belated birthday, hope it was a fabulous day. And how wonderful to hear that our work inspires you, we love putting smiles on people’s faces!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline.
Beautiful.
Thank you, Janet!
R+K
This made my morning. I can’t stop looking at these wonderful pictures. Fantastic work!
Dear Tickly Roach, how wonderful that it made your morning, we love to hear that! Thank you very much!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline.
Reblogged this on Cosmic Expansion and commented:
Nature lovers of the world — unite!
I love this project. Great work.
Wonderful to hear Sheilah, thank you!
Warm regards,
Riitta and Karoline.
Enchanting~
Thank you Blythe!
Best wishes from R+K
Just plain fantastic. The beauty.
Oh, thank you so much Amanda!
Warm thank yous from Riitta and Karoline.
Amazing. Made my day. The people (and their hairdos) are so beautiful.
Fantastic to hear, thank you very much Fran!
Riitta + Karoline.
Nice pics. Can recommend all of you who like this project to see Anna Halprins RETURNING HOME from 2002, she did performances like this at the age of 80+ to explore the changing body. The documentary about herlong life as a dancer BREATH MADE VISIBLE is also very inspiring.
Dear Ulrika,
Thank you for your comment and we will definitely check our Anna Halprin’s work!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline.
So cre8ive and fresh. Congratulations and smile all around.
Thank you so much Cuidado, smiles all around here too (double!)
All our best,
R+K
So nice, i love it!
Gruß Sylvia
Thank you Sylvia!
Best wishes,
Riitta and Karoline.
I am SO IN LOVE with these!
We love to hear that Jeanie, thank you!!
Riitta and Karoline
Amazingly beautiful,serene.
Dear Kathleen,
Thank you so much!
R+K
Fantastic! Absolutely staggering
Thank you very much Deirdre!
These people and their portraits are elementally beautiful. The depth of insight makes my heart quiver and dance to encounter something ancient and totally new. Thank you. Thank you.
Dear Joe,
Thank you so much for your wonderful comment, and fantastic to hear that our work touches you!
All our very best,
Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth.
Truly beautiful, as a wrinkly myself love connecting to nature, in the UK we appear to have lost this connection. Great work:)
Dear Beryl,
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, and I am sure this connection can be found in the UK too, we’d love to try!
ALl our best,
K+R
My heart is so full that my head cannot find the words. Thank you.
Dear Judy,
Two pounding hearts back, thank you!
R+K
I dearly love these–wonderful faces and grand foliate heads! My next-to-last book was “The Foliate Head,” so I have a leafy pedigree. Splendid. Utterly impossible to pick out my very favorite.
Dear Marly,
Thank you so much for your lovely feedback and for your beautiful writing about our project on your blog – we loved it! (And we definitely will have to dive into your world of foliate heads!)
All our very best,
Riitta and Karoline
Follow-up post: http://thepalaceat2.blogspot.com/2013/03/stems-shoots-and-leaves.html
It’s wonderful to see us old guys playing.
Thank you Nancy, we are all for playing! At any age!
All our best,
Riitta and Karoline
Wow, amazing!!!
Many regards
ANNi
Thank you very much ANNi!!
Best wishes,
R + K
I love these! Thank you.
Thank you so much Phoebe!
Tusen millioner takk, alle dere fantasi-rike og modige norske kunstnere … natur-elskere… visjonœre! Thousand million thanks, all you imagination-rich and courageous Norwegian artists… nature-lovers… visionaries! And thank you to visionary artist of spirit, Ann-Rosemary Conway, who sent me this, knowing how I love the Norwegian one of my home lands and the world of belonging in nature! I am so moved by your beauty of body, mind and spirit. And I giggle at the playing with echoes of Kittelsen, too! Blessing power to you all!
Dear Astri, tusen hjertelig takk, kiitos pallion and a million thank yous back for that wonderful comment!
All our very best,
Karoline & Riitta
I must add a correction to my comment above, I focused on the Norwegian artists before I read the text closely, and I want to also thank the wonderful Finnish artists too! THANK you, and creative power and inspiration to you, Karoline and Riitta and all of your collaborators.
Incredible! As a descendant of Pajunen and Juntunen I truly appreciate the Finns.
Human creativity at it’s best! Playful, beautiful, odd, and inviting…these are wonderful!
Dear Mary Jo, thank you so much for your lovely feedback! All the best, Riitta & Karoline
This is astounding! Good for you, your energy, your spirit… and your photography too
Thank you very much Penny!
cool!!!
Thank you!
I find these images simply genial and very touching. They remind me of old beautiful trees. I had not realized that wrinkles go so well with vegetation. Thank you!
Such amazing photographs. I keep coming back to look at them time and again. There’s something magical and otherworldly about them. Will you be publishing them in a book?
I would like to thank for your work. What a great idea! Did you KNOW the people who became the artwork?
Did they like the result? How where they involved in making it?
Your images are great! I really enjoy your work and find so very engaging. You must be aware of Sacha Goldberger’s work with his grandmother Mamika. It is quite different than yours, yet still there is some connection. Thanks for your pictures, they are beautiful!