BOULDERS
The central themes in my work have been the elements for some time - earth, air, blood, water and vegetation. Now the focus of my attention is on the element earth. The forces and movements of the soil are interesting. Surface forms, soil types and surface patterns are exciting and beautiful. Lava flows, rock cracks, cracked clay plains and sandy deserts form strong structures and poetic views.
Clay, the main material of my expression, is earth. It is a material that has been finely ground by the forces of nature from different types of rock. It contains mountain peaks, rocks and water bodies that have been ground over time, mixed together.
Some of the works to be exhibited bear the patterns of Hossa's colorful rock on their surface. Both the rock and the patterns are long-lasting messages in time. On the one hand, they are firmly tied to a place, on the other hand, as knowledge and experiences, they can be moved in time and place, reinterpreted, re-encountered, and shared further.
Eternity can be eroded – for the sake of minerals, metals, construction, energy production, art. Man violently digs into the soil, splitting, crushing, and grinding it. Rocks are split, leveled, and scattered as coatings. They are killed and buried under vehicles and buildings.
A school was planned in our nearby forest. I actively opposed the process for almost four years. In the end, almost all the trees on the plot were felled. I counted 95, 125, 160, 170, 188 annual rings from the healthy stumps and trunks of the pine trees... The loose soil was peeled away. Underneath it, a strong, handsome, and beautiful rock covering the entire area was revealed, which was quarried to a thickness of up to four meters. It was fragmented and ground into a layer of crushed stone covering the entire plot. With the help of machines, man conquered the eternally strong stone.
What happens when clay, a plastic, malleable material, is burned at high heat? It turns back into stone. I'm trying to press the ground stone back into boulders. To apologize.
Varkaus, June 10, 2026
Leena Mäki-Patola
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Leena Mäki-Patola is a visual artist living and working in Varkaus. She graduated from the University of Art and Design in 1983, Department of Ceramics. Her main material is ceramics, but she also uses other materials and techniques to achieve the desired result.
Mäki-Patola's works are in the collections of the Finnish State Art Commission, the Design Museum, the Finnish Crafts Museum, the Kuopio and Varkaus Art Museums, among others. From the beginning of 2022, he was granted a state artist's pension.
The content of Mäki-Patola's work arises from everyday world events, to which she reacts sensitively. Various upheavals occurring in nature for different reasons shake the mind. The treatment of the fragility of life, the power of chance/fate and the vulnerability of natural elements are the content of her work. For some time now, key themes in her work have included, among others, luck, misfortune and unpredictability, as well as the elements. The artist's experience is that earth, air, blood, water and vegetation are all at the root of each other, closely interdependent and mutually nourishing inseparable parts of nature, and that of the elements, blood is the one that threatens the balance between them.
