Marika Mäkelä
11 Feb - 07 Mar 2010
MARIKA MÄKELÄ
JEWELS OF EXCAVATION
11.2.-7.3.2010
Marika Mäkelä is a bon vivant
She loves good food, from oysters to wieners. Lovely clothes, from Yamamoto to homespun woollens. Good accommodation, from the Ritz to country dwellings. Men, from the best thinkers and artists to the best drivers. Drink, from Dom Perignon to buttermilk. Her tastes are exclusive and permissive, which of course has an effect on her works.
They are at the same time carefully considered and constructed, even severe, yet extremely sensual, steered by desire and pleasure.
Not only can Mäkelä's paintings be viewed with pleasure, they can also be felt, smelt and almost heard. One can become immersed, and swim or climb, in them. They generate intellectual and physical pleasure.
Change is the perennially permanent feature of Marika Mäkelä's work. Her paintings sprout ever-new subjects and themes, developing and surprising the viewer. She may take a step backward, even two, to a theme that she has addressed long ago, but she never repeats her former self or her former paintings, but instead varies things, viewing them from a new perspective.
Mäkelä had occasionally painted small works on wood already in the 1980s, but it was not until the first decade of the 21st century that she began to explicitly use layered plywood as a base. In the previous stage, she had wanted to construct reliefs on the surface of the paintings, while now she sought to penetrate the painted surface and the colours, to chisel, engrave and create patterns. In these paintings, the solid feel of material of the varied textures of wood combines with drawing and colours that occasionally appear to be almost immaterially light and occasionally throb with deep tones.
In her most recent paintings, also executed on wood panel, Marika Mäkelä has returned to creating reliefs in colour by painting. These works in small format are, once again, completely different. The scale of painting is smaller than ever before, resembling tattoos, filigree work or embroidery. It is as if Marika Mäkelä is seeing the most wonderful dream of the sultan's most skilled silversmith, and we have the privilege to see it as well.
Ilona Anhava
A new book with Timo Valjakka’s text of Marika Mäkelä’s work will be published by the Publishing House Parvs in conjunction with the exhibition.
JEWELS OF EXCAVATION
11.2.-7.3.2010
Marika Mäkelä is a bon vivant
She loves good food, from oysters to wieners. Lovely clothes, from Yamamoto to homespun woollens. Good accommodation, from the Ritz to country dwellings. Men, from the best thinkers and artists to the best drivers. Drink, from Dom Perignon to buttermilk. Her tastes are exclusive and permissive, which of course has an effect on her works.
They are at the same time carefully considered and constructed, even severe, yet extremely sensual, steered by desire and pleasure.
Not only can Mäkelä's paintings be viewed with pleasure, they can also be felt, smelt and almost heard. One can become immersed, and swim or climb, in them. They generate intellectual and physical pleasure.
Change is the perennially permanent feature of Marika Mäkelä's work. Her paintings sprout ever-new subjects and themes, developing and surprising the viewer. She may take a step backward, even two, to a theme that she has addressed long ago, but she never repeats her former self or her former paintings, but instead varies things, viewing them from a new perspective.
Mäkelä had occasionally painted small works on wood already in the 1980s, but it was not until the first decade of the 21st century that she began to explicitly use layered plywood as a base. In the previous stage, she had wanted to construct reliefs on the surface of the paintings, while now she sought to penetrate the painted surface and the colours, to chisel, engrave and create patterns. In these paintings, the solid feel of material of the varied textures of wood combines with drawing and colours that occasionally appear to be almost immaterially light and occasionally throb with deep tones.
In her most recent paintings, also executed on wood panel, Marika Mäkelä has returned to creating reliefs in colour by painting. These works in small format are, once again, completely different. The scale of painting is smaller than ever before, resembling tattoos, filigree work or embroidery. It is as if Marika Mäkelä is seeing the most wonderful dream of the sultan's most skilled silversmith, and we have the privilege to see it as well.
Ilona Anhava
A new book with Timo Valjakka’s text of Marika Mäkelä’s work will be published by the Publishing House Parvs in conjunction with the exhibition.