Skogshyddan Air Art Residency

Skogby, Finland 8. 2024 

The Skogshyddan AIR Artist Residency provided me with a natural and historical setting that awakens emotional responses to a still active past and a nature sensitive present. The house enlivens memories, while the outdoor forest and seawater surroundings provoke exploration, fantasy, and a sight full of potential views.

I decided to install this work in dialogue with nature and the old house's interior. The study room was like a perfume of innocent romanticism and raw naturalism. My works often comprise a theatrical interplay of such controversies, suggesting that the earthly and the marvelous are increasingly interwoven in physical, conceptual, and aesthetic unity.

Working with space arrangements of a 3 m. long hand-embroidered veil, found antique furniture, and forest branches, I invite the viewer to act upon seeing a scenery of invisible mysteries and lyrically gain access to it. In discussion with medieval manuscripts, pre-Raphaelite, and 19th-century porcelain art, which focused on beauty and detailed ornamentation, I use a compositional language that presents the total picture as an object of poetic experience.

We can talk of a cocoon, which wraps the truth in obscure floral, mosaic, and figurative designs, suggesting that these elements are intended to function as a unit. The cocoon serves as a sophisticated item that embraces the composition, defining a parallel between human and non-human. Natural and handmade elements are pieced together in a simple yet sweet serenity, enhancing poetic allusions and emphasizing the close ties between the tangible and the imagined.

Athanasia Karampela