Johanna Rytkölä

Johanna Rytkölä (née Johanna Näsänen; born 1956) is a Finnish sculptor who works in stoneware ceramics. She studied at the University of Art and Design (now part of Aalto University) in Helsinki, Finland, receiving a Master of Arts degree in the Department of Art Education in 1982, and in 1986, a Master of Arts degree in the Department of Ceramics and Glass Design. She received the state artist grant for a five-year period in 2008 and for one year in 2015. In 2023 she was granted the national artist pension. She lives and works in Vantaa, Finland, in her studio house renovated from a former grocery store building.

Johanna Rytkölä had her first solo exhibitions in 1988 in Galleria Bronda in Helsinki, Finland, and in the gallery Blås & Knåda in Stockholm, Sweden. She has since held numerous solo exhibitions and presented her works in joint and group exhibitions in Finland and abroad, for example in Austria, Romania, Ireland, Germany, USA and India.

Works Johanna Rytkölä, solo exhibition 2016, Heinola Art Museum, Finland.

Johanna Rytkölä combines sculpture and ceramic art to create unique artworks. She is primarily a sculptor, having never worked in functional ceramics. Her sculptures are made of stoneware ceramics, with clear forms, bright colors and an interplay of matt and shiny surfaces as characteristic features.

While the works tend to be impressive in size, curving forms often evoke an impression of movement, suggestive of dance, music, or streaming water. The curved shapes of her works have been described, on the one hand, geometric or architectural or, on the other, organic or biomoprhic. Nevertheless, her works have also been considered “surreal” and not constricted by form. She has been considered an innovator both as a sculptor and as a ceramic artist.

In 2024 she exhibited sculptures that combine ceramics with blown glass, made in cooperation with two glassblowers. A number of public and private art collections in Finland have acquired her ceramic sculptures, as well as art and design museums and collections of ceramic art in other countries, for example, Röhsska Museum in Göteborg, Sweden.

The 14 meter long "Wall of Joy" was designed by Johanna Rytkölä for the square of the police headquarters in the city of Tampere in 1993. The colorful ceramic mural is composed of factory made clinker tiles.

In 2005, a 12 meter long wall-like ceramic sculpture was created jointly by three Finnish artists: Päivi Kiuru, Maarit Mäkelä and Johanna Rytkölä. The work is built along a walkway in the residential area Arabianranta in Helsinki. The building blocks of the ceramic wall carry serigraph printed pictures of the Arabia porcelain factory formerly located in the area.

In 2018, Johanna Rytkölä created a series of large relief sculptures for Katriina hospital in Vantaa, Finland. The ceramic reliefs are composed of a number of fragments, with recycled glass details. The artworks were commissioned by Vantaa Art Museum.

International awards and honours In 1995, Johanna Rytkölä's ceramic sculpture ”On the way to paradise II” received the silver medal of the Presidency of the Republic in the 49th international ceramics competition “Premio Faenza” in Italy.

In 1997, Rytkölä's design for a plate received an Award of Merit in the Kutani International Decorative Ceramics Competition in Komatsu, Japan. In 2021 she was on the organising committee for the IAC Congress held in Finland together with the Arctic Ceramic Center.

Johanna Rytkölä is founding member in several artists´ groups formed to promote ceramics as art. The group Helsinki Fat Clay was established in 2008 to promote Finnish ceramic art internationally. In 2012 the group was invited to present their works in the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, Italy. In 2019 Helsinki Fat Clay had an exhibition in Stockholm, Sweden.