Heikki Marila: Paintings

Marila’s recent renditions of the floral theme have acquired new layers of meaning. In his new works, flowers have become emphatically corporeal interpretations of aesthetic form and pictorial truth. There is tangible tension between their accentuated aestheticism and the artist’s aggressive technique, which has him literally throwing the paint at the canvas – bombing it, if you will.

Marila throws himself into the physical act of painting. For him, physical gesture and the imprint on the canvas are indissolubly merged. It would not be an overstatement to say that the act is sometimes more significant than the subject. Progressive abstractification is part of Marila’s process. Flowers are still present, conveying layers of history that are manifest both as subtle details and abstracted variations.

Emma Helle: Walking Lake, Burning Heart

Two kinds of metamorphosis take place in Emma Helle’s latest sculptures: the human figures stand motionless, perhaps on the verge of turning into trees, while the landscape-like clouds and bushes have sprouted limbs, as if they were attempting to carry the space. The static figures stand watch like gentle sentinels, benevolently protecting and caring for everything around them. The physical contours of the dynamic figures meanwhile melt and fluidly coalesce with their surroundings. The clouds may drift and the landscape may change, but the movements of the mind follow the wanderer. The rippling lake is an emotional landscape with an irresistible pull.

In the studio space there is an intimatate section of the exhibition, where Heikki Marila's paintings on bare canvas take his painterly expressionism to a new level revealing the layered process, and Emma Helle's small-scale ceramic sculptures respond with organic playfulness.