Floating, decaying, perishing, 2022
Our joint exhibition with Saara-Maria Kariranta and Eeva-Maija Priha in Gallery Uusikuva in Kotka was built around the theme of time as a process of breaking, wearing and layering. In addition to some of my older works there were three new works on a theme of insects.
Enigma
In the installation five ceramic sculptures resembling pots stand on a high table and above them, a flock of dark butterflies spread their wings. The pots are formed like butterfly pupas. Pupas are interesting and detailed but, at the same time, hiding the developing butterfly. The frozen forms protect the butterfly’s transformation. A ceramic pot is a human invention for preserving food.
The Last Treasures
The installation “The Last Treasures” is a collection of beetles in a glass display case I made for it. The inspiration comes from beetles living in Finland, and the small variations between different species. The glaze colours are not strictly realistic. The insect collection made, not by finding or capturing them from nature, but by making magnified sculptures of them, is a somewhat twisted idea. Natural science collections remind me of the human need to preserve, organize and explain but also to control and destroy.
The ghost writers
“The ghost writers” is an old garden school book with sculptures of bark beetles on it. In nature, the beetles and their larva carve paths under a tree bark as if writing in old calligraphy. They are pests and if let multiply they threaten the forests. They benefit from climate change, thereby writing a new era.
Works from series The Piers, 2017-19
nature stones, glazed ceramics