Roller Derby “Kisses”: The Beautifully Bruised Paintings of Riikka Hyvonen
From the elbowing to the knee-shoving, there’s no denying that the full-contact, female-dominated sport of roller derby is a badass one. And so are the women who play it. Their ability to take a hard hit and get back up again is the epitome of girl power—and has inspired Finnish artist Riikka Hyvönen to make their unapologetically bruised butts the stars of her artworks. A former derby girl herself, Hyvönen sees life through a unique filter, and looking at her work requires a shift in our perceptions.
Colored by modern influences and a bawdy sense of humor, Hyvonen’s art is realism, pop, kitsch, and occasionally camp, all at once. She often focuses on frozen moments in time, what she calls “momentary markings”, whether in her portraits of bruises or sculptures of melting ice cream. At the heart of it all is a defiant expression of identity and beauty, often set against mainstream ideals. In subculture, an individual expresses herself, but at the same time identifies herself as a part of a group. A fundamental value in derby life is to accept people exactly as they are, something that Hyvonen has carried into her work.
She has always had a fascination with different subcultures. We can find traces of her taste for random cuteness and kitsch at her childhood home in Lapland. Located in northern Finland, its walls are like an art gallery of her first creations; a replica of Russian-French artist Marc Chagall, a Mickey Mouse on a bright blue background, with some cute animals sprinkled in. Among her personal art heroes were the Young British Artists (YBA), such as Jake and Dinos Chapman, Sarah Lucas, Jenny Saville, and Tracey Emin.
The “Brit artists” were a loose group of visual artists noted for their shock-tactics, who began exhibiting together in the 1980s. Many of them graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, University of London. Determined to follow in their footsteps, Hyvonen also chose to study at Goldsmiths.
It was around this time that she fell in love with playing roller derby—first, in Helsinki-based league Kallio Rolling Rainbow, and then in London-based leagues Rockin’ Rollers and the London Rollergirls. A big butt is considered a plus in the ring, as it usually makes a great blocker, whose role is to knock their opponents out of bounds. You aren’t playing properly if you don’t end up with a couple of nasty lesions by the end of the game. Derby girls have lovingly nicknamed their bruises as “kisses.” Hyvonen’s series Roller Derby Kisses documents them in their full glory in larger-than-life mixed media portraits. “I chose to picture butts, instead of other parts of the body, because that’s a very probable spot for a colorful derby kiss,” she admits.
I got a really beautiful bruise on my bum, do you want to see a pic? It has 12 colours and is the size of my head!”
It is on social media where her creative process begins. One piece in particular started with a Facebook comment from a friend: “I got a really beautiful bruise on my bum, do you want to see a pic? It has 12 colours and is the size of my head!” Most of us flinch when we see an awful bruise, but what Hyvonen saw was an inspiring myriad of colors that she describes as delicious and mesmerizing. This piece is a shimmering, leathery portrait of an exceptionally psychedelic bruise. Like all of the pieces she creates, it falls somewhere between a sculpture and a painting, and it is in its sculptural elements where the piece comes to life.
To achieve the right amount of realism, Hyvonen uses a combination of materials such as paint, wood, medium density fiberboard, leather, and various tools like a jigsaw for cutting curves. Glitter is also used to enhance the celestial qualities of a bruise, elevating it as an object of admiration of derby girls. In a way, this allows us to identify with the heavenly glory that a girl feels when she survives this aggressive, fast-paced game.
The giant, in-your-face size of her work plays an equally important role in its impact and telling a story. Hyvonen’s largest piece to date, titled “Fresh Meat in Fishnets!,” is massive at roughly seven feet and weighing over one hundred pounds. “I think it deserved its large-scale because of the festive way it ended up on her bum—as a consequence of her beginners course, called ‘fresh meat’ in derby—after a sort of initial rite,” she explains. The piece took her three months to complete. From beginning to end, Hyvonen remains faithful to her friend’s expression of pride, including the use of her original comment (emojis and all) for a title. While amusing, her titles are no joke.
“The women who give their own kind of a significance for their bruises can turn the objectification upside down and tell about people who decide upon their own bodies, and the way they want to picture themselves.”
London Rollergirls player Cami Gabriel is the derby girl behind that now immortalized first Facebook comment. “In roller derby, social media is very important,” she says. “As we are a ‘for the skater, by the skater’ grass roots initiative, we require word of mouth to publicize our games and make sure we fill those sports halls.” She accepts that subjecting yourself to social media is a double-edged sword. While useful and empowering for derby girls, their Instagram pages can become a hub for misogynists that leave body-shaming comments. “I read a rather interesting complaint regarding the fact that all the bottoms belonged to “thin white girls.” Considering I entered derby because I felt like my weight was holding me back from doing other sports, that was rather ironic. If I get a really amazing bruise I will continue to post it online. It is part and parcel of this sport, and not something I will feel ashamed about. I certainly wear my bruises with pride.”
Seeing bruises as beautiful and something to be proud of, Hyvonen points to the significance of how they are commonly seen. Historically, women have been especially concerned with being seen as a commodity. Her investigations into this issue can be found as early as her 2010 series, .ber Cute inspired by her childhood coloring books. That series contemplated the concept of cuteness as a feminist act. Girls grow up surrounded by cuteness but have to give it up as adults if they don’t want to lose their credibility. She could find no explanation why cuteness would correlate with a girl’s intelligence or the importance of a painting.
Embracing her girlishness, in 2012 Hyvonen took a note from her childhood drawings of cute animals with her Tinkerbell series. The series portrays Paris Hilton’s famous pet Chihuahua with big puppy-eyes in an array of glittery wall mounts. “I hung them on the wall of my studio like memories from a victorious hunting trips,” she recalls. In the Tinkerbell series she comments on how we tend to approach living creatures as accessories or trophies in modern society. This does not exclude women in modern society, especially female celebrities like Paris Hilton, who are scrutinized for their personal lives. The media has an obsession with the men they are dating as if they were their accessories.
It is part and parcel of this sport, and not something I will feel ashamed about. I certainly wear my bruises with pride.”
Obviously, Hyvonen is objectifying women in Roller Derby Kisses, but no more so than they do. “Being proud of your rink rash is considered sexy, and the glamor of a derby kiss is part of the objectification made by these women themselves,” she says. Something clicked when Hyvonen first saw how her team members would gather and show each other their bruises after well-played games, like badges of honor. “I felt the feminist, communal spirit was something exceptional and definitely worth researching.
At the same time, I got fascinated by the way the derby subculture creates its own objectifications on the internet. Posting photos online and commenting on them is an essential part of the unapologetic representation of beauty.”
In the world of #FreetheNipple and #LoveYourLines, social media is bringing roller derby to a new audience, and Hyvonen wants to help people see beauty in all sorts of unexpected places. The internet provides her with an essential, spontaneous, unrestricted source of inspiration and motivation. “The way the images the derby girls take of themselves circulate, and make it possible for even more people to identify in an alternative expression of beauty,” she says. “I do naturally wish that my images would awaken different thoughts and interpretations. I hope that people could, after the possible first shock, find beauty in them. And maybe through that, expand their own ways of understanding the beauty of things.*
This article first appeared in Hi-Fructose issue 38. You can get a print copy of the full issue here.
Most of us flinch when we see a bad bruise. Finland born, Helsinki based artist Riikka Hyvönen sees an inspiring myriad of colors that tell a story. Her art combines hyperrealism painting with sculptural elements, pop and kitsch styles, taking the pain that we have all experienced at some point and making it strangely alluring. She calls bruises "kisses", specifically worn by roller derby girls, of which she collects photographs and then reinterprets into large-scale artworks.
