Martti Kapanen

Born: 1949

Biography:

Martti Kapanen is a Finnish artist born in 1949. He graduated from the department of photography at the Lahti Institute of Art and Design in 1975. Kapanen worked as a freelance photographer for women's magazines before returning to Central Finland to take up the position as the Alvar Aalto Museum's architectural photographer until 1990. He began creating photographic art on the side, adopting the artist name Kapa, and questioning the heavily documentarian tradition of photography. Kapanen was one of the founding members of the Fotogenesis group, which organized exhibitions and published a magazine. The group won the Finnish State Award in 1984. Kapanen's work has been shown at various institutions, including The Finnish Museum of Photography and The Cable Factory in Helsinki.