WISH TREE – ROOM OF MEMORY, Laina Koskela, Liisa Malkamo

LAINA KOSKELA

Born and raised in Lakeus, I have always admired individual, impressive yard trees, birch-lined avenues leading to houses, and tall forest groves in the middle of fields.
Wood as a material became familiar to me early on, as I played among the light, fragrant shavings of planed wood.
In my recent works, wood is present both as a material, a subject, and a source of inspiration.
In my Spirit of Wood series, I have carved drawing plates from thick discs cut from the red pine of Pyynikinharju.
In the Spell series, patterns resembling worm tracks evoke the image of secret writing or an unknown language.
I began the Wish Tree series last autumn while staying in Prague at an artist residency. The wish tree in the exhibition is a dead pine from Pyynikki.

L I I S A M A L K A M O

The starting point for my works is usually some observation made, something heard or seen, an element that stays in my mind and begins to occupy my imagination. The creation of my works is a process.
Sometimes, this transformation process continues even during the exhibition or exhibitions. I need time to study what I have observed, often also seeking verbal information around the phenomenon.
The visual idea chooses the medium in which it will be realized.
I often explore the same theme both as paintings and graphic works or installations.
Currently, I am increasingly drawn to simpler things, abstract, minimalist, and conceptual expression. For a long time, I have worked with simple geometric shapes in my works: circles, triangles, and lines. I am interested in seriality and repetition.
The works in this exhibition have all been born from memories. Some time has passed since the observation was made. The observation re-emerges after undergoing a metamorphosis. I work intuitively; at the beginning of the process, I do not always recognize where the subject of my work originates, but at some point, I remember. That is when the work starts to bring forth other images alongside it. It is as if I have stepped into the room of memory, a space where things emerge as images.

This text was created with AI assistance