Watching I Collage by Isabella Chydenius

Isabella Chydenius (b.1988) is a Finnish interdisciplinary artist working and living between Helsinki, Finland and Cape Town, South Africa. Currently based in Los Angeles. Past: Averill Park, New York | London, UK | Berlin, Germany | Paris, France | Heidel, Norway. Chydenius interdisciplinary work combines painting, installation, sculpture, text, video and performance and focuses on exploring societal structures of gender, sexuality, the body and mind. She is curious about the behavioural social constructs behind the feminine and the masculine in present society while often revisiting the past, to be able to get perspective of the journey ahead. In her process of the installation practice she often physically breaks found objects and takes them apart to be able to look at them again to recreate new understandings and ideas of them. She also uses this method when making moulds and sculptures of the body and combines the sculptures of body parts with contrasting materials. Together the materials and final pieces reflect current global socio-political situations and acknowledge the historically oppressed. Chydenius' practice includes documenting and observing the process by video, drawing, text and photography which has developed into reworking some ideas into abstract and some to figurative or conceptual. She wishes to be creating momentary escapes from the current reality, meditations of sorts, while focusing on important subjects, such as environmental, human- and equal rights. Chydenius likes focusing on public installations in urban landscapes and parks and strongly believe art is for everyone.