Art Center Ahjo, Hehku space: Maria Nuutinen

‘Artistic work is inspired by the quest to understand life and its strangeness’

The Remote Connection installation, built by jewelery artist Maria Nuutinen in Art Center Ahjo's Hehku space, consists of jewelry and objects whose subjects are drawn from life affecting beliefs and behavioral mechanisms that are difficult to explain with reason. Nuutinen is fascinated by the belief in destiny, divination, premonition, instinct, messages from beyond and the belief in various signs. What she is also interested in is in how strange ways a person tries to influence the course of his or her own life in order to cope with adversity. The contradiction between rational thinking and instinctive behavior is fascinating to the artist.

The work process of the works has diary-like features and the works often involve everyday observations made by Nuutinen which have served as a starting point for the works. The title work of the exhibition, Remote Connection -body jewelry, is the most personal work in the exhibition, an illogical act that helped the artist cope with a new life situation and the feelings it engendered.

The motifs in the works make use of an enamelling technique where the motifs on the copper surface are created by melting glass powders in an 800-degree furnace. ‘Mixing and layering enamel powders of different colors is as unpredictable as life, one can never be quite certain of the outcome’.

Maria Nuutinen is a jewelry artist from Lappeenranta who works in her study at the Art Center Ida, which was founded in 2018. She has participated in exhibitions both in Finland and abroad since 2001. She has studies in both design and visual arts. Nuutinen is a founding member of the nationwide Jewelry Association (Korutaideyhdistys ry) founded in Lappeenranta in 2005, and her works are included In the collections of the Finnish Design Museum, the Dutch CODA Museum and the American Recine Art Museum. Nuutinen's work has been supported by the Arts Promotion Centre Finland.

[email protected] | www.marianuutinen.com | @nuutisenmaria