Karl Ketamo
b. 1987
Salo, Finland
📷 @samiparkkinenstudios
Based in
Helsinki, Finland
Lives and works in
Myllypuro Artist Village, Helsinki.
IG ︎
Contact
karlk@karlketamo.com
+358 45 132 3122
Artist Statement
I spend a lot of time with images and objects that other people have stopped looking at.
Many of my works begin by finding something: a discarded painting, a used frame, a photograph from a flea market, a printed object picked up from the street. I rarely know what a work is about before I begin. Collecting, photographing, cutting and assembling are not simply ways of producing artworks but ways of thinking through them. Making often reveals the idea rather than the other way around.
I am interested in how images carry traces of previous lives. How they contain other images, other people, gestures, histories and ways of seeing. My work approaches image-making as something that happens between images rather than from a single point of origin. Questions of authorship emerge from this process, but they are rarely the starting point.
Working across photography, installation, sculpture and artists' books, I explore our relationships with images, landscapes, labour and memory. I am drawn to materials that have already lived a life before reaching me. Perhaps this is also why I think of images less as objects than as companions—things we inherit, carry, reshape and eventually pass on.
Education
Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture
Master of Arts
Helsinki
2017-2020
Royal Academy of Art
Bachelor of Art
The Hague, Netherlands
2012-2016
Lahti Folk School
Diploma in Photographic studies
Lahti, Finland
2011-2012
EXHIBITIONS
2024
Booked 2024 (September 2024)
Taidekeskus Itä, Lappeenranta
Booked 2024
MUU Helsinki Contemporary Art Centre, Helsinki
Teos 2024
Cable factory, Helsinki
2023
Jäähyväiset maisemalle / Farewell to the Landscape (yksityisnäyttely)
Galleria Huuto, Helsinki
Jäähyväiset maisemalle / Farewell to the Landscape (yksityisnäyttely)
Galleria Mältinranta, Tampere, Finland
2021
Among Other Things (yksityisnäyttely)
Persons Projects
Berlin
Kuusisto Art Manor
I am responsible of the future of breathing!
Kaarina, Finland
2020
Kosminen Salonki
Helsinki
Related Realities, Backlight Photo Festival
Gallery Himmelblau
Tampere, Finland
2019
Figures (yksityisnäyttely)
Gallery Hippolyte
Helsinki
Blurring the Lines
Fotodok
Utrecht, Netherlands
2018
fin.land
The Finnish Museum of Photography
Helsinki
Re: Search
Schiedam Photofestival
Schiedam, Netherlands
Blurring the Lines
Carrousel De Louvre
Paris
S P A C E D
Gallery Lapinlahti
Helsinki
Status Flux
Test Lab, Vapaan taiteen tila
Helsinki
2017
(Un)bound
Rotterdam Photo at Photoville,
New York
Staging the Inhabitable
Theater het Fijnhout, Group exhibition
Amsterdam
2016
Fotobokfestival Oslo
Photobooks from Finland
Oslo
2016 Days of Awesome photo-books
Gallery Lhgwr
The Hague, Netherlands
Off Print Paris
Royal Academy of Art The Hague in Off Print
Paris
Tell Me What Do You Think
Gallery Twelve Twelve
The Hague, The Netherlands
Museum Night
Rietveld Theater
Delft, The Netherlands
The Migrant (Moving) Image
EYE film institute
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Steenbergen Stipendium Exhibition
Netherlands Photo Museum
Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Nieuwe Lichting
Studio Pulchri
The Hague, The Netherlands
Expansion Festival
KABK graduation festival
The Hague, The Netherlands
What’s Good?!
Melkweg
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Endless Possibilities
Raamweg 47
The Hague, The Netherlands
COLLECTIONS
Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
The Hague, The Netherlands
Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment
The Hague, The Netherlands
MALcollection, Modern Art
Loppersum, The Netherlands
CONTACT
Available for example for photography, lectures & workshops etc. anywhere
Always up for collaborations, coffee and meeting new people!
karlk@karlketamo.com
+358 45 1323 122
Website design by Karl Ketamo /
Illustrations by Oskar Ketamo