Gunnel Tjäder

Artisan and Folk Art Painter

It all began with the ptarmigans of Kiruna on a wool print. My hometown and our Arctic surroundings have inspired me ever since. Clean shapes and lines with plenty of room for colour is something I like and keep coming back to. I also draw inspiration from the Torne River Valley, where I have my roots.
My activity is based on wool printing, designs using wool combined with reindeer leather, and traditional folk art painting from the Torne Valley.  I have been running my own arts and crafts business in Kiruna since 1996.  Please visit my homepage gunneltjader.com if you want to know more about me and my craft.


Foto Kent Tunlind

Crafts in wool and reindeer leather

In textiles, I work with textile prints, screen print, on wool. The wool prints become both large-scale artworks and décor on my reindeer leather products. The ptarmigan and the Northern Lights are a recurring theme in my wool prints, both large and small-scale.  I often use several colours in a wool print, which gives exciting – sometimes unexpected – colour transitions and effects.   Key pouches, mobile phone bags, handbags, and shoulder bags – these are examples of my products.

Foto Kent Tunlind

Giron
Mobile phone bag and shoulder bag in wool and  naturally tanned reindeer leather. The ptarmigan, or "Giron" in Sami, has a special significance for Kiruna as it has given the city its name.  The bags comes in several colours.

Foto Kent Tunlind

Polar dance
The northern lights, difficult to catch and magical to see, are an inspiring natural phenomena of luminious shapes, colours and movements in the dark winter sky. Here Lapporten is the stage for it's spectacular dance in the sky.
"Polardance" is hand printed on wool using a screen print technique.


Folk Art

I have my roots in the village of Kitkiöjoki in the north of the Torne Valley (Tornedalen), so I have a soft spot for the Torne Valley style of folk art painting. I gained my knowledge of folk art painting, ancient painting techniques and materials when I was a student of the late Paulus Aili, the conservator. Then as now, the furniture is painted with hand-mixed linseed oil paints. The décor is painted freehand.
In 2003 I was awarded the Gold Diploma of the Colour Academy in Stockholm for decorative painting, having completed the Academy's advanced training course in decorative painting. 

A beautiful setting, a piece of furniture that has regained some of its original splendour, and above all a satisfied customer – those are my aims for the completed assignment..


Contact Gunnel Tjäder

Gunnel Tjäder Form och hantverk
Föreningsgatan 41,
981 32 Kiruna, Sweden  
+46(0)70 671 8064

FB / IG: @gunneltjader.kiruna