Mia Hamari - Sanctuary of Dreams

Sculptor Mia Hamari's dreamlike works interweave past and present, reality and fiction. The wooden figures, carved with an axe, are like memories of a bygone era: battered, weather-beaten depictions of human forms that have begun to transform into strange, alien beings.

Mia Hamari's primary material is wood. She often uses her favourite tool, the axe, to work on her sculptures, frequently incorporating natural materials, horsehair, metal, glass, teeth, ceramics and old objects into them. She works with larger pieces outdoors, where the weather and the changing seasons give the surface of the wood a unique patina, and creates her sculptures without sketching. Their shapes emerge from somewhere, travel down the arms, smash into the wood and slowly evolve into figures of a similar kind yet distinct species.

Hamari's sculptures are images created by the subconscious and filtered through dreams, like echoes of an underwater forest. Branches of trees grow through the creatures; their mouths are open as if repeating a low mantra and breathing quietly. It somehow feels as if they are simultaneously below and above the surface of the water. With some of them, time stops unexpectedly, while others resemble apocalyptic figures telling a dark story.

In the exhibition halls, the figures create a wordless connection with each other through their gaze. The brighter exhibition hall shows the beginning of the story: there, children play in their own magical world, and blue-toned dreamscapes are displayed on the walls. Through youth the spectator moves toward the depths of the darker exhibition hall, where different levels of existence and stories of the past and future intertwine.

Mia Hamari (born 1976) is a sculptor who lives and works in the village of Simonkylä in Simo. She graduated from the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. She has held numerous solo exhibitions in different parts of Finland and has participated in several group exhibitions in Finland and abroad. Her works are featured in many major art collections in Finland, and she has received several art awards.

The exhibition has received support from the Finnish Heritage Agency, and the artist's work has been supported by Arts Promotion Centre Finland.