MIKA KARHU                                                                                            
BIOGRAPHY

b. 1969
lives and works in:
Sahanmäenkatu 19 C 11
05800 Hyvinkää

"It is much easier to look at other people or to think
about them than to touch them. Karhu wants to get
to grips with the shadowy domains of the anonymity,
formlessness and unrecognizability of sexuality. But
the world of his drawings is not the world of concepts
or ideas. It is the world that is lived and experienced,
the world of the body"
                                            Otso Kantokorpi
(in his text about Mika Karhus work:
"A Prison of word and flesh", 2000, for
Hyvinkää Art Museum. Otso Kantokorpi
is a writer and essayist currently chief editor
of the main Finnish Art Magazine Taide)

Mika Karhu is represented in collections (selected):

Kiasma, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki
The Finnish State Art Collection
Helsinki City Art Museum
Joensuu Art Museum
Hyvinkää Art Museum
Hämeenlinna City
Riihimäki City

Public Art commissions

Hyvinkää Revenues Office
Pohjanrinne School, Riihimäki

Grants (selected)

2002 1 year grant Finnish Arts Council
2000 The Finnish Foundation of Culture
1998 Alfred Kordelin Foundation
1997 Hyvinkää City Art Grant
1994 The Finnish Foundation of Culture
1992 Riihimäki City Art Grant

Solo exhibitions (selected)

2002 Galleria Heino, Helsinki
2001 Gallery Bakeliittibambi, Helsinki
2000 Hyvinkä City Art Museum
1999 Gallery Bakeliittibambi, Helsinki
1996 Galleria Just, Turku
1995 TM Galleria, Helsinki
1994 Galleria Allinna, Riihimäki

Mika Karhu has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions since 1991 and will participate in a exhibit on Finnish Contemporary Art in Germany 2002;other planned exhibitions are scheduled for 2003 at Oulu Art Museum and Lönnström Museum, Rauma.     

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