I mainly work with hand embroidery and recycled materials. The slow pace of the process allows time to think and focus. Each stitch connects separate parts into a whole. The act of making becomes a ritual: used and broken elements change form and are reborn as new creatures. In my work, I combine painting, ink, and various photo‑transfer and textile dyeing techniques.
SARCOPHAGI OF THE MIND 2025
https://lottapiakallio.fi/portfolio/sarcophagi-of-the-mind/
MUISTIN PAIKAT 2023
Through embroidery, childhood memories of a place are brought into view across different time periods. A meaningful place becomes a part of who we are. Places are not fixed; they are layered in time—transient, changing, disappearing, and continually renewing. Our relationship to a place shifts according to circumstances. The same place can appear differently to a person as situations and stages of life change.Places of memory are both subjective and collective. They may continue to exist in the minds of people even after they have physically disappeared. Memories themselves, however, are not permanent: over time they transform, bend, and gradually become gauzy and blurred.
MIND OVER MATTER 2022
https://lottapiakallio.fi/portfolio/mind-over-matter/
”Willpower alone can overcome a physical problem” used to describe a situation in which someone is able to control a physical condition, problem, etc., by using the mind to keep going even when we are tired. Sometimes the willpower is not enough or it is too much for our body. When stress remains in the body, the physiological reactions do not subside, but constantly send messages to our brains to prepare for the threat, even if the actual danger no longer exists. This can cause, for example, panic attacks and feelings of anxiety.
MINDMAPS 2022
https://lottapiakallio.fi/portfolio/mind-maps-2022/
In the Mindmaps series, I have painted with ink copies of old lithographs depicting old cities. The textiles are then cut into pieces, revealing part of the picture below, some of the works also feature ink-painted momikami tissue paper and writing. Hand embroidered paths can be interpreted as concrete paths or mind wonderind around. The past and the present are bound together into one inseparable whole.
NUKU, NUKU NURMILINTU 2012
Wrapping protects and conceals, holding a secret within. It can offer support and strength, but it can also become controlling or suffocating. The ritual of wrapping and unwrapping is central: layers of material accumulate around a core, suggesting form while obscuring detail. The textile sculptures are composed of multiple layers, created through alternating cycles of embroidery and dyeing.
https://lottapiakallio.wordpress.com/portfolio/nuku-nuku-nurmilintu/
JÄLKIKUVIA 2009
The works are dyed using rust, charcoal, red wine, coffee, and tea. Hand embroidery brings forward the forms that emerge from these stains. Some pieces incorporate printed graphic elements that are further developed through embroidery. From these accumulated traces, I construct maps of everyday life. Some of the embroidered dots, lines, and patterns resemble cartographic symbols. The shoreline‑like patches in works stretched onto round embroidery hoops, and the concentric zones in pieces embroidered directly onto fabric, evoke topographic contour lines—representations of the surface of the land.
https://lottapiakallio.wordpress.com/portfolio/jalkikuvia-2009/
STILL-QUIET-HILJAA 2006
Variations of a figure and dream. Printing and stistching on recycled textiles and handwritten letters.
https://lottapiakallio.wordpress.com/portfolio/still-quiet-hiljaa-2006/
RAJAPYYKIT 2005
Textile installation based on the stories and the memory of my grandparents life and evacuee from Carelia. Made to Finnish -Carelian exhibition Dialog to Petroskoi and Salo artmuseums
https://lottapiakallio.wordpress.com/portfolio/rajapyykit-2005/
Lotta-Pia Kallio 