I'm Inka Bell, a Helsinki based visual artist, mostly working in the expanded field of printmaking.

Through my work, I am constantly looking for new ways to respond to the world around me. I could also call it organising chaos, which is why I have the tendency to keep working as long as I have managed to eliminate all excess, leaving only the essential, whatever that might at the time for me be. My works are purely abstract, focusing on observing the behaviour of physical and abstract space of the material and the process of the chosen media.

In my practice I explore the relationship between two dimensional and three dimensional, through material, color, surface and repetition. Paper plays a central role in my work, which I use for printing or shaping into new forms. Typical to my practise is a dialog with a machine, whether being a computer to create the matrix or a tool that enables me to work the material in a way that I could not achieve with my bare hands. In the end, it is my hands that revise what the machine has shaped. I am consciously emphasising process, which to me means a phase of learning that might take the work to a direction, that I didn’t know it could even take.

Part of my practice is working with three dimensional works, kind of paper sculptures, which process vaguely reminds me of weaving. In these works I am particularly interested when two surfaces meet each other forming entities which are only appearing when several hundreds, sometimes thousands of elements are layered together.

CONTACT AND ENQUIRIES

Inka Bell
+358 50 346 4822 (Finland)
inkajarvinen@gmail.com

Instagram: @inkabell

NOW

• Linears, solo exhibition, Porvoo Art Hall, Porvoo (FI) 29.4.–22.5.2022
• The Angle of Viewing, group exhibition, Galerie Anhava, Helsinki (FI) 5.5.–29.5.2022

UPCOMING

2022

• Enter Art Fair, Copenhagen (DK) 8/22
• Bricks Gallery, solo exhibition, Copenhagen (DK) 10/22

2023

• Forum Box, solo exhibition, Helsinki (FI)

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND PUBLICATIONS

2021

• 1+1≈2, solo exhibition, Vapaan Taiteen Tila, Helsinki (FI)
• Spring Salon, group exhibition, Lokal, Helsinki (FI)
• Manifesto_21 group exhibition, Glasshouse Helsinki (FI)

2020

• Passage, Helsinki Art Museum Gallery, solo exhibition, Helsinki (FI)
• Resemblance Through Contact. Grammar of Imprint, group exhibition, Tartu Art House (EE)
• Kuvan Kevät, MFA Graduation Exhibition, Exhibition Laboratory, Helsinki (FI)

2019

• 24, group exhibition, Bricks Gallery, Copenhagen (DK)
• Ripples, group exhibition, Marcy Universe home exhibition, 11/2019, Helsinki (FI)
• Playing Grounds, group exhibition, Galleria G, Helsinki (FI)
• Antimatter, solo exhibition, Artek 2nd Cycle, Helsinki (FI)
• Keep Your Garden Alive, group exhibition, Institut finlandais, Paris (FR)
• Keep Your Garden Alive, group exhibition, Spazio Nobile Gallery, Brussels (BE)

2018

• Syzygy, published by Rooftop Press (FI)
• Enlightment, group exhibition, Northern Photographic Centre, Oulu (FI)
• The Eagle Has Landed, group exhibition, SIC, Helsinki (FI)
• Editions/Artists’ Books Fair, New York (US)
• Zanni, solo exhibition, Artek, Helsinki (FI)
• Mix & Match, group exhibition, Lokal, Helsinki (FI)

2017

• TypoCraft, group exhibition, Lokal, Helsinki (FI) & Sōnen-an, Kyoto (JP)
• Synchronicity, solo exhibition, Sinne, Helsinki (FI)
• Synchronicity II, solo exhibition, Limited Works, Copenhagen (DK)

2015

• Tori, group exhibition, Lokal, Helsinki (FI)

2013

• Space(s) in Between, solo exhibition, Myymälä2, Helsinki (FI)

COLLECTIONS & PUBLIC WORKS

• "Kulmalla", Public Artwork, Vermonniitty (FI)
• Finnish State Art Deposit Collection
• Finnish Art Society – Art Lottery 2020
• Frans Masereel Centrum Collection
• Helsinki Art Museum Collection
• HUS (The Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa) Collection
• Private Collections

SELECTED GRANTS, RESIDENCIES, NOMINATIONS & STIPENDS

2021

• Project grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)
• Project grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR)

2020

• Anita Snellman Foundation Stipend
• Queen Sonja Print Award nominee (NO)
• Working grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)

2019

• Tamarind Institute residency, Albuquerque, New Mexico (US)
• Project grant from Grafia

2018

• Artist working grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation, Uusimaa Regional fund (SKR)
• Project grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)
• Graphic Designer of the Year 2018 (Grafia)

2017

• Grönqvistska Stiftelsen Stipend
• Project grant from Grafia
• Project grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)

2015

• Artist working grant from the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR)
• Project grant from the Arts Promotion Centre Finland (Taike)
• Project grant from Grafia
• Printmaking residency at Frans Masereel Centrum (BE)

WORDS ABOUT SELECTED EXHIBITIONS AND WORKS

Linears, Porvoo Art Hall, 2022

I draw a line on paper.

The pencil tip sinks into the paper as I press on it. The line disappears as does the start and finish of the line. At times, the line circles in on itself, closing. The colours and the surface interact. The paper is as big a part of the work as the coloured line. The textured paper gnaws at the pencil tip like a grater. I sharpen my tool every few movements. To save my wrists, I now use an electric sharpener.

The line appears unforced by the coloured pencil my hand moves along the paper. Hand, pencil and paper, nothing else. This combination shows layers and direction unlike if I’d use mechanical tools. How the colours and shapes connect. All there is to see is visible.

Passage, Helsinki Art Museum Gallery Space, 2020

The clash of surfaces resonates in different ways on my retinas. Sometimes it is soothing and sometimes it makes me anxious. Colours and their junctions come alive when I stop and look at them for a longer while. The meeting of the colours creates a reaction, in which colours let go of the old and form something new together. These reactions are presented as some kind of passageways to the unknown for me, because it seems that they are fumbling in many directions and they can change their shape completely through even small variations. If these surfaces were never to mix, nothing new could be created.

Antimatter, Artek 2nd Cycle, 2019

The work is combined of and defined by the standard A3 paper size which also acts as a printed motif. This method is the basis for the whole of the Antimatter project. Bell has reproduced the “imageless” blank print on top of a same-sized sheet of paper, sometimes layering directly, slightly moving the paper, or purposefully creating a non-optimal print finish. She has also studied the behavior of colors, such as when a slightly translucent white or black changes when placed on top of different colored fine art papers. Bell has then taken the printed sheets and either combined them into larger artworks or correspondingly cut the sheets into pieces, creating reliefs where different colored surfaces become interlinked.

Playing Grounds, Gallery G, 2019

The works seen in the exhibition are studies on how a digital trace appears alongside traditional printing methods. Papers that are predominately screen printed have been modified by laser, either by cutting or in a way drawn by it. In the series 0:23–6:30 MIN the parameters of the laser cutter have been manipulated so that the beam which is suppose to cut through the paper is altered to the extent at which it solely “draws” a digitally created line onto the surface, resembling a light pen stroke. By interrupting the process at certain times exposes the almost arbitrary order the machine draws, which reflects the translation or interpretation of human visual output into the machines code.

Synchronicity, Sinne, 2017

The artworks in the exhibition resemble early digitally produced images – a time when the computers were as big as rooms and were used to generate minimalistic monochrome geometric printouts. In those days, human beings dreamed of a future in which our burdens would be entirely taken on by digital and mechanical aids. Today, half a century later, the computer plays a key role in Bell’s artistic work. But, instead of exploiting all the possibilities that the computer offers, she employs digital means to minimize the marks of the human hand. The pictures are first drawn on the computer, and she then switches to an analogue process that uses traditional printing techniques. By Markus Åström, Curator

Sticks 1–43, 2019

Sticks series study how the dynamics of the composition changes by the amount and the position of the blind embossed and stamped stick elements used. For me, the most interesting outcome came when the cut acrylic pieces used for blind embossing were randomly thrown on to the paper and then printed with a press. When stamping, similar randomness was no longer an option, so it was used in a dialogue with the previously printed work. All of the works are unique and are done in different scale, some using either or both of the printing methods.

Portrait by Paavo Lehtonen