Sculptor Tiina Seppälä’s artworks convey an interest in the natural sciences. Connecting art and science has always been one of Seppälä’s most important goals. In her works, she discusses, for example, the vulnerability of the environment and its organisms, time and change. She often utilizes the conflict of material and subject for effect. The works consist of small pieces which the artist organizes and sorts to create new, unique worlds. The message of the works is serious, but they are often sprinkled with a pinch of humor.
The art cabinet Underground Museum continues Seppälä’s earlier themes where bugs, mushrooms and protists offer an endless amount of art ideas. Small organisms can surprise you with their diversity if you look at them close enough and long enough. The Underground Museum is a collection of treasures preserved by soil horizons. There is life and material in many forms under our feet, but also signs of past worlds and their lives. Insects, seeds and plants inhabit the highest layers of the museum. By following the tree roots and mycelial filaments, we descent to lower layers where a time capsule into past worlds is opened. Among the rocks and soil, you can find curiosity-awakening fossils that have been formed by millions of years as well as traces of ages before humans.
The feel of the material is an important starting point for Seppälä’s work. The feel of the objects must be conveyed to the spectator without them having to touch them. Sometimes, the materials can be used to trick the spectator. Hard materials like concrete can be made to look soft as cotton if processed in the right way, spongy paper pulp can look like tough steel, and brand-new pottery clay can look like hardened, millions of years old fossil.
Sculptor Tiina Seppälä (born 1983) graduated from the Kankaanpää Art School in 2007. She lives and works in Oulu.
