“ Working with wood and making small mortise and tenon joints gives me time to think about everything in the world”. Laasonen hopes that this meditation is also visible in the sculpture. At least I think it is, although it is difficult to conclusively point to it. I think it is about so many small nuances, which are actually unseen by the eye, but all that is experienced, perceived and remembered in relation to a material world, which is brought together by our memory’s route of intertwined subjects, strengthened by many sensory perceptions, reveals something essential of the piece like a truth.

This same truth concerns the thematic, which is central to Laasonen. Her work is often very personal, and its source might also be a very precise revisit of her own personal history, but the exact time and place bound in these stories are not actually significant to the viewer. Their truth manifests in the same way as Laasonen’s craftsmanship: as small nuances, which are difficult to describe but which are easy to relate to, because we all have had the same kinds of moments, which assist us to understand more about the world. Remembering them is a principal part of our identity.” – Otso Kantokorpi, 2018

Citation: Exhibition Publication no. 17: Tiina Laasonen, kuvanveistäjä, Nelimarkka Museum – The Art Museum of Southern Ostrobothnia, 2018

Biography

Tiina Laasonen (b. 1968) works with sculpture and spatial art. In her work, craftsmanship and traditional woodworking techniques are united with contemporary sculpture. Laasonen works with wood by sawing, planing, gluing, carving, and turning. The different shapes, properties, and the warmth and softness of wood, make wood Laasonen’s favorite material. Laasonen graduated from the Kankaanpää Art School as a sculptor in 1993. Laasonen has also worked as an environmental artist and made several public works. Her works have been featured in numerous museum and gallery exhibitions in Finland and
abroad, and her works belong to many museum and public collections. Laasonen has been awarded the Jaakkoo Cultural Award in 2019, the Ostrobothnia Art Council’s prize in 2017, and the Young Ostrobothnian Artist prize in 1997.