For humas and beetles – The Secret of Garden, 2022
In an exhibition in Järvenpää art museum there were works of the artists of `The golden era´ of the Finnish art (1880-1910) and from three present days artists, me being one of them. I displayed four installations, were the nature is seen from very close: they depict bugs and seeds. I completed two of my ceramic series with new parts. Two new works for the exhibition continue the theme of insects.
The text I wrote was printed on the wall:
‘I have portrayed a scale that is seldom seen from the point of view of humans: seeds and insects. These things are present every day, very close to us, but most often they remain unseen by humans. A miniature world existing simultaneously alongside and within a larger world is a fascinating thought. I keep wondering how different it is to exist as an individual being in the world of insects compared to how it is in the world of humans. It is an alternative way of existing. The life cycle of a caterpillar includes periods of rest and metamorphoses, a variety of strange forms. An animal that looks a certain way can hardly be recognized as the same animal a week later. The shapes of seeds and caterpillars share a similar element of something expectant: both entail an idea of growth and transformation. Viewing a work of art could have something in common with discovering a small wonder of nature.’
The loosing team
I complited the series of pollinators with three new sculptures. The species live in Finland, bees, a bumle bee and a gadfly. I have molded them by hands and clazed. Many insects have nowadays bacame endangered and I depicted them big, so that the viewer can see them equal to humans. The loss of insects is a threatening and stealthy phenomenon and the results of it can be unpredictable.
Beginnings, 2017-22
I have made the first sculptures of this series without a thought of collecting together an installation. For this exhibition it became a collection of seeds mainly of trees. A seed is a strange package: it contains instructions for the whole plant, that can live for hundreds of years. Also the seed itself can stay in dormancy for years and grow roots when it has landed in a wright place. It is in a state between a living and non-living. The sculptures mostly depict seeds of Finnish trees. It was interesting to search and find seeds from nature, to look closely and depict detailed.
the first photo: Mikhail Olykainen, Järvenpää art museum
Ghost writers
I have paid attention to the tunnels carved by bark beetles on the trunks of old trees since I was a child. The tunnels are like maps or writing. Also the small and humble plants, like lichen and moss are fascinating. The scupture of a bench is a base for carvings and small ceramics. I tried to create layerdness similar to nature: the living grows on dead matter. The pile of old garden and nature books refers to past time, similar to the writing that can be read in between the tunnels of the beetles. The sentences are imaginary extracts from the point of view of small animal living in a manmade garden.
Small wonders
In the installation I depict the larvae of Finnish butterflies. They are often the sign of midsummer, even though they can live as a larva for several years. With clay one can mould and depict the larva`s folded flesh.
the last photo: Mikhail Olykainen, Järvenpää art museum