Kaija Sanelma Harris: Warp & Weft

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“Kaija Sanelma Harris: Warp & Weft,” 2024

Installation view, Remai Modern, Saskatoon. (Photo: Carey Shaw) (courtesy of the Gallery)

From her home studio in Saskatoon, Kaija Sanelma Harris (1939-2022) created breathtaking textile works that brilliantly conveyed her love of colour, texture, nature and light. She was an artist who both innovated the technical processes of weaving and pushed its aesthetic potential far beyond the limits of functionality. Her lifetime of work is a testament to her profound dedication and industriousness, effortlessly fusing the concerns of fine art and craft.

Born in Turku, Finland, Harris was trained in fibre and textile work in her home country. While apprenticing in Iceland, she met an American student who became her husband. They moved to the U.S. where their daughter was born, before emigrating to Saskatoon in 1973. Harris would soon become a leading voice in Canadian fibre arts.

Kaija Sanelma Harris: Warp and Weft will be presented across two venues: Remai Modern and the Saskatchewan Craft Council (SCC), located at 813 Broadway Avenue, Saskatoon. In recognition of the complementary missions of the two organizations, SCC’s exhibition highlights the creative, personal, and technical shifts in Kaija’s extraordinary work, while Remai Modern’s exhibition will situate her within the context of visual art history.

Together, these exhibitions tell the story of one of Canada’s most important textile artists. Both venues include works from all decades of Harris’s career, as well as preparatory drawings, fibre studies, and archival materials. Remai Modern’s selection of more than 50 works is brought together from private and public collections across the country and includes Sun Ascending (1985), Harris’s largest and most important architectural commission, created for the Mies Van Der Rohe designed TD Centre (Toronto), which is now in the collection of the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina).

Warp & Weft is organized by Remai Modern, in collaboration with the Saskatchewan Craft Council.