Eila Minkkinen- How do you roll, miss Minkkinen??

4 March–10 April Holvi, lower gallery
4 March–15 May window gallery of the Craft museum of Finland

The exhibition is a retrospective of Eila Minkkinen’s multifaceted body of work. The artist’s metal sculptures are displayed in Jyväskylä Art Museum, and her jewellery and glass sculptures are showcased in the Craft Museum of Finland. Born in Central Finland’s Konginkangas in 1945, silversmith-sculptor Minkkinen casts, solders, welds, and grinds. In her hands, copper, steel, silver, bronze, and recycled materials are all turned into sculptures and jewellery.

In the course of her long career, Minkkinen has employed numerous metalworking techniques. The lower gallery of Jyväskylä Art Museum’s Holvi displays copper art she has created with a technique known as repoussé. In 1992, Minkkinen received the State Award for the revival and use of repoussé in the creation of modern works of art. While working with paper materials, Minkkinen wondered if metal could be crumpled like paper. She thus created a technique of her very own, “crumpled copper.” A portion of the exhibited sculptures showcase a profile technique Minkkinen has also invented. The artist creates three-dimensional sculptures by combining several similarly shaped sheets cut from copper. Guests of the exhibition are greeted by the 2010s series My Happy Facebook Friends, which is inspired by social media.

Eila Minkkinen describes the jewellery on display in the Craft Museum of Finland as follows: “Among various other techniques, I learned the ancient art of repoussé while studying at a goldsmith workshop between the years 1962 and 1965. The technique involves hammering designs in low relief into a thin, malleable metal plate. The most suitable materials are gold, silver, and copper. At first, I made jewellery with various face designs, such as a copper bracelet from 1963. I began to use casting to make jewellery with Finnish forest animals as my motif in 1975. These animal themed pieces of jewellery became very popular, and foxes, rabbits, and bears have remained a motif in my oeuvre ever since. My materials and techniques have changed according to my enthusiasm and desire to experiment. In 1985 I worked with paper jewellery, and in 1996 created necklaces which combined computer components and mammoth bone. My idea was to study how humans have developed technology since the extinction of the mammoths. Among other materials I have used are rock, enamel, bone, and wood.” Since 2013, Minkkinen has experimented with combining glass and noble metals in a series of glass sculptures, also included in the exhibition.