 Kaj Stenvall first came to the attention of the Finnish art world about ten years ago when he began to paint a very familiar-looking duck in a variety of settings. Stenvall asserts that this character has been developed by himself, even while acknowledging its similarity to the most famous duck in the world.
The scenes in his pictures are from the world at large and his duck often appears in absurd, if recognizably generic, settings. There really is nothing in his paintings that one can put their finger on to connect them to any particular corner of the world, especially not to Finland, except perhaps a specific intensity of angst and foreboding.
Kaj Stenvall is eager to open a dialogue with the large and diverse audiences who are aware of his pictures. The feelings that his paintings bring out in people routinely range from hilarity to anguish. Stenvall is fascinated by the transitional line between the comical and the tragic, and vice versa, and his art’s inherent humor – both absurd and tragic – is quite clearly an essential feature of his approach.
"The duck is more of a symbol; the material of an intermediary; and a symbol of Man. The character
illustrates the dilemma of being human. The duck, as such, doesn´t symbolize anything to me
personally. It is used as a catalyst in the process of how it will be interpreted in the eye
of the beholder."
TRT Vizyon Magazine
22.12.2009 (pdf file, 5,5 Mb)
Finnish-Norwegian Culture Institute,
Oslo 17.9.-14.11.2009
Kaj
Stenvall at Facebook 2.11.2009
Birdhouse,
Washington 16.3.-12.5.2007
Birdhouse,
Tampere 6.7.-26.8.2007
Linnut,
linnut, Lapinlahden Taidemuseo, 28.6.-6.10.2007
Galleria Uusikuva,
Kotka, "Kuraattorin valinta", 8.2-2.3.2008
Finnish-Norwegian Culture Institute,
Oslo, 17.9.-14.11.2009
Kaj Stenvall at Harrods, 4.8.2009
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