marja hakala - a creative nature

marja hakala has created an extensive repertoire of works that take pieces of nature - literally - and reconfigure them such that their innate beauty is magnified, amplified, enlarged even as they are reconfigured and structured in such a way as to render them aesthetically pleasing but unnatural. it is in this juxtaposition of purpose and intent that her work bears its most interesting fruit.



and then you can simply look at it -



because it is truly beautiful, exciting, and almost addictive in its complex and detailed simplicity.

here is what marja says about her work:

"i work with nature. i create installations indoors and environmental art straight into nature; in forests, parks and trees, at cliffs and so on.

i respect nature. in forest i can hang small, glittering in sunlight and almost unnoticeable glasspearls on branches of a fallen tree. on the other hand i rearrange nature’s own materials in a new way in their own “territory”.

i bring nature’s materials gathered from forest indoors. i use them to create larger installations or smaller objects. for example I placed pinecones eaten by squirrel as pieces on the old boardgame. spruceneedles or cones on the floor can be formed into a big mandala. even withered and faded leaves can have a new life in a work of art – at least for a moment. my works are not meant to last forever.

nature gives us life and energy, opportunities to meditative silent prayer or unbelievable experiences of beauty. if we destroy nature, we will destroy ourselves."

just look: