Heikki Marila swapped flowers for weapons

Award-winning artist Heikki Marila, known for his floral motifs, painted parts of the gun to ease the confusion.

When Russia launched a war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, his work could not have been unaffected.

– The impact was huge.

The war changed the subjects of Marila’s paintings.

Heikki Marila lives and works in Turku. He is one of the most significant Finnish painters of his generation.

An extensive exhibition of an artist’s career is at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere.

There are works for 30 years, some for the first time.

Heikki Marila is especially known for her large, colorful, flower-related paintings.

They are also on display at the Tampere exhibition, but this time the main focus is quite different.

The topics of the latest works are warranted. The paintings include assault rifle locks, weapon trigger, sights and grenade lighter.

Marila clarifies that an assault rifle lock is not a \”just\” lock, but is a symbol.

– The lock model is worldwide and unfortunately, the object is far too familiar to many people.

The exhibition features a series of six works of assault rifle locks.

– I like building conflicts and described the lock as an aesthetic object.

Marila, who once completed a military service for eleven months of military service, says she is not a pacifist, but not a military enthusiast.

For him, in the everyday life of people, there is now too much military speech and too many discussions about equipment and weapons in the media.

– Wars do not disappear from the world, even if they are not talked about, but war and militarist speech confuse me.

– I painted weapons because I had to somehow disassemble and deal with my confusion.

One concrete wall of the Art Museum is covered by a large triptych of three works from mutilated human torso.

The title of the work is *Creation report. *

However, the red intestines and guts make the lives lost as a result of war.

Born in 1966, Heikki Marila became a young artist because she needed to say.

– The need to say has been a reason to paint and the picture has always been a way for me to say.

The paintings have a social perspective. The question of power is a red thread.

Marila has also painted gray suburban columns, parliamentary houses, as well as Kalse of the Employment Agency and Kela.

– They always have some claim. If there is some mind movement in the viewer, I have succeeded.

Marila painted her first colorful flowerwork at the beginning of the millennium. He was influenced by 17th-century Dutch artists.

Three flower -related paintings gave him a prestigious, one million Swedish crown * Carnegie Art Award * photo art prize in 2011.

Since then, the works of the painter have been featured around the world.

Heikki Marila is in his exhibition in Tampere.

The artist follows the school group.

The boys have turned their backs to paintings. The posture reveals that you could not be less interested.

Marila laughs. He remembers how his own parents took a reluctant little boy to art exhibitions.

Next big exhibition in Helsinki

From the large windows of the Art Museum, sunlight is flooded inside. The view of Lake Näsijärvi is open.

– There is still a lot to paint.

The next big exhibition is in Galerie Forsblom in Helsinki in November.

Military images give way to the flower theme.

You paint flowers again?

– Yes. I have returned to them.