Statement

 

About the works made from ready-made marble tableware, 2013-

 

In the recent works I wanted to confront my practise with stone. re-evaluate, ask the ”why and how” questions. The backround for the body of work is “skill”, the core consept of craft. The term is embedded in the craft field and loaded with values and preconceptions. How is it discussed today and what does it really mean to the maker? The traditional stone working skill is my most precious tool; it is my fetish and my lifeline. My practice is dominated by one material — stone. The relationship to it is so thorough that it becomes more than just a material to begin with. Yet, what happens when this skill encounters ready-made marble tableware, tacky candleholders or salt shakers from the 80s or mass-produced items instead of raw material? How does it change the work, the values and the control of skills?

 

 

About the works made from cacholong, 2004-2011

 

Stone is my main material as a jewellery artist. I have worked with it ten years, and still it offers me challenge and surprises. I love it for its versatility, and hate it for its limitations. Working with stone is slow and it suits me. I don´t want to romanticize it that the timetaking working process would be meditative or spiritual, but the slowness has its value and the concrete grinding work helps me think. In the first working years I disliked the stone for its heaviness and clumsyness, and I wanted to change these qualities to the opposite by pushing the material to its edge by making it as thin and light as possible. Nowdays I´m already asking what the stone wants to say.

 

The idea and the material go hand in hand, but sometimes the stone piece offers something you can´t pass, a colour change or a line or a structure. Then you have to change the original plan. Sometimes I search for these treasures to be used. And in the other hand there is always the need to control, need to do a perfect shape,  a perfect oval.

 

The white cacholong has offered me the theme for some years. In the natural material there are all the white shades you can think of. When you look its whiteness long enough, you start to see some colours. This stone has the perfect athmosphere, it is minimalistic and quiet, stagnant but not boring, quite noble even. It looks soft and gentle, but it is not the truth. In a white stone all details show more clearly. In the emptiness there is content. Where is the limit of your expression or form, where is the limit in minimalism?

 

 

The white is waiting, it is silent, quiet and calm, it is clear and comforting, and frighteningly empty. Can a blanco portrait tell more than a photo? Is there something more to look at in white scenery than in the view from your balcony?

 

 

I do love the northern winter, when everything is covered with snow. It is silent, quiet and calm. Clear and comforting and frighteningly empty.