Tree Talk 2

The second exhibition in the Wood Talk exhibition series, which began in 2024, will open at the Antares Art Center on Saturday, May 24th at 2 p.m.. A new selection of woodcutters, woodcarvers or artists who use trees as their subject is now on display. 

The artists in the exhibition are: Juha Menna, Laura Pohjonen, Tiiu Anttinen, Maarit Malin-Pötry, Terhi Kaakinen, Teija Lehto, Reijo Puranen, Taina Kokkonen, Merja Heino, Jaakko Rönkkö, Noora Nio-Juss. 

Teija Lehto (b. 1965) “I want to make the everyday and ordinary the subject of my pictures and thus emphasize the importance of everyday observations for the experience of the meaning of life. I focus my gaze close, cut off the outside and dive into the micro-landscape. My woodcuts are pictorial extracts from my everyday reality. Through them, I strive to reflect on the essence of time, memory and recollections, the transience of moments and the meaning of everything. transience.”

Terhi Kaakinen (b. 1979) “I make colorful, expressive wooden sculptures, often real-sized wooden people, mostly children who adventure in exhibitions like real children. I am a daughter, a mother, a woman. I am a professional sculptor who draws on everything that surrounds me for my works. I carve what I see, experience and think. Sometimes my subjects are children’s games, sometimes moments of family conflict – as a counterbalance, my own hobbies, such as the joy of dancing.”

Reijo Puranen (b. 1956)’s soul landscape is the Tornio River Valley. He often depicts it in his drawings and reflects on the effects of climate change on the sensitive northern nature. The works The Last Tree and At the Edge of the Turvesuo deal with a fictional survival story after an extinction wave and the dystopian disappearance of trees after the Climate Disaster.

Taina Kokkonen’s works are abstract compositions. She thinks about what kind of shapes and color surfaces she makes, because the harmony of colors is the content of the works. The works are individual pieces, although they are realized using graphic means. The idea is also a collage-like recycling of old prints; the combination of new and old is surprising. You can’t always guess the end result. The themes for the works can be found in nature.

Tiiu Anttinen’s (b. 1960) “Dog under the table” is a small sculpture installation that depicts the festive, if somewhat stiff, moment of sharing food, when people have gathered together but cannot escape their role as clique.

Juha Menna (b. 1970) has carved “The Mask of the Dictator” from elm. The information drawn on the surface of the “War Drum” work about wars after 1970 has been added this year as well.

Merja Heino (b. 1959) brings an installation to the exhibition that consists of parts. The materials are maple, apple tree and pine. The title of the work is “Natural Science Studies – Bugs and Insects”.

Jaakko Rönkkö (b. 1947) summarizes his works as follows: “Nature appears in my works as my experiences, which I think belong to our common understanding of nature. The forest, trees, grasses, growth, flowering, withering and death are the common story of all living things. Education and experience are my tools. Drawing and the use of space in my works are a discourse on the common experience of nature.” She brings a drawing-based installation to the exhibition.

Laura Pohjonen (b. 1972): “I am a graphic artist and visual artist and I use different graphic methods in my works, such as woodcut, etching and mezzotint. Sometimes the works expand into installations in space or incorporate a three-dimensional element. In my works, I deal with the sensitive and fragile side of existence. The series of works in the Puun puhetta 2 exhibition depicts the different sides and roles of a person through a child’s role play, as well as adaptation and non-adaptation to them.”

Maarit Malin-Pötry (b. 1960): “I carve small, rough sculptures from wood with a knife and an axe. I use hammered metal and color in my sculptures. My subjects have been natural phenomena such as the feeling of spring and three-dimensional sounds, mist, rainbows, thunder, fish, snakes… Now my sculptures have birds that sing of spring. ”

Noora Nio-Juss (b. 1976) Noora Nio-Juss (b. 1976) has been working with woodcuts since 2015. “It has taken time to find my own way of working with woodcuts and to make the material bend to my own expression. Making woodcuts is physical and slow. The stiff birch plywood is limiting and challenging, but also rewarding. I usually roll all the colors onto the same plate and print my unique woodcuts by hand.”

The exhibition is open to the public from 26.5.–29.6. 2025 from Tuesday to Sunday 12–18. Free admission! Welcome!