Creating windows into the heart of natural landscapes.
Finnish artist Antti Laitinen creates installations, photographs, videos, and multimedia works that revolve around nature – in one way or another. His work is often humorous but it always involves at least some degree of manual work. For example, in It’s My Island (2007), the artist piled bags of sand into the Baltic Sea until he made his own island. For Forest Square (2013), he physically removed a 10 x 10 meter patch of forest, sorted it into different parts and then rebuilt it by arranging the soil, moss, wood, and pine needles by color. In the ongoing Broken Landscape series, which he has exhibited in various art galleries in Finland and Europe, Antti Laitinen explores similar themes of destruction and reconstruction. Created in natural settings, the surreal images show how the artist has intervened in the landscape to alter it, temporarily.
Inspired by his childhood and the idea of mysterious forests where most of the woodland remains hidden in darkness behind thick branches, he created “windows” to offer a clear view into the heart of nature. Some photographs show circular openings in bushes. Others, branches of trees that part like the waves of the Red Sea. At the same time, the works are temporary. Over time, nature will reclaim these voids as bushes will regrown and tree branches will fill up the empty spaces. The artist will exhibit the series along with other works at the GSA Gallery in Stockholm from February 24. Then, he will show the series at the Turku City Art Museum in Finland from May 28, 2022. You can also purchase prints of his artworks from Galerie Anhava in Helsinki. Photography© Antti Laitinen.
