RIIHIMÄKI

MAIJA ISOLA UNIKKO MURAL

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The city of Riihmäki turned 60 years old in September 2021, and to celebrate the occasion I had the honour of painting both my biggest mural to date and my first public artwork.

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The brief for the mural was that the imagery should be connected to the city and explore both its history and heritage. In my mind, I wanted to highlight an individual from Riihimäki who is well known in both the city and all across Finland.

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Maija Isola is a legendary painter, designer and Riihimäki native. She produced hundreds of designs for world renowned Finnish design company Marimekko, with her most famous being the instantly recognisable Unikko (Poppy) she produced in the 1960’s. With that in mind, I created a series of proposals on this subject for the decision makers and they subsequently chose the image that best fit their vision for the wall.

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The mural was painted during August and September 2021. It was a slow project due to both changes in the weather and the tiled surface of the wall. Altogether there were 11,000 tiles covering the 85 square meter wall, with the mortar between each tile presenting issues that had to be overcome. Thankfully, the work was a success and was finished just in time for the day of celebrations – huge thanks to the city council of Riihimäki and Hyvinkää KRT, the owner of the building to which the wall was connected!

Below you can see some pictures of the mural, as well as time lapse footage of the process.

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Photo credits: Aamuposti & Ville Välimäki / Yle