images by Parca Lallo, as published on Google Streetview |
can be seen from the road
an inventory and documentary of art environments in Europe created by non-professionals
images by Parca Lallo, as published on Google Streetview |
images are screenprints from the video in the documentation |
Recently, at the end of October 2024, a short film appeared on the Facebook page of the regional TV channel Ternopil 1 in which an inhabitant told how she had provided the outside of her house and the neighbors' house with decorations.
Nadiya Kutsa, the inhabitant, was 64 years old when she was visited and interviewed by the film crew.Documentation
* Video by Ukrainian TV Ternopil 1, on Facebook, October 23, 2024
all images published here in agreement with Justyna Orlovska, from her website Off the beaten track |
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The sculpture garden is a creation of Adam Szubski (1931-2008), who was born in Warsaw.
His father, Stefan Szubski, had a job in metalworking and won many prizes in the years before the Second World War.
Adam Szubski became a stonemason, but he also worked with metal, especially with sheet zinc, .a material he also used at that time to create works of art.
Adam Szubski died on November 15, 2008.
His family takes care of the maintenance of the sculptures and occasionally organizes exhibitions and workshops in sculpture
The gallery is open to visitors from May to October.
all images courtesy of Sophie Lepetit, from her website |
Life and works
This art environment is an impressive creation by Florence Marie, who was born on April 17, 1946 in Le Havre, a commune also located at the mouth of the Seine, but then on the north side, diagonally opposite Honfleur.
At a young age Florence loved reading literature and after her school years in Le Havre, she went to Paris to study philosophy and theatre.
She was active in writing and painting and had a house with a small studio on the Place Saint-Georges in Montmartre.
In 1994, in her late 40s, she moved to Honfleur, where she had found new accommodation in the former forge building which, in addition to a large outdoor space, included a 400 m2 workshop and a house with several floors.
The decorations she made are certainly not small-scale, on the contrary, the creations that adorn the walls are often man-sized.
In the 2000 m² space outside there are even very large creations, mostly made of recycled material, such as the depiction of an angel of the apocalypse, provided with silver wings, announcing to a black Virgin the birth of a star child.
And there is also a life-size giraffe hanging from the roof on a chimney, partly replacing it.
The interior of the house is also filled with a lot of fascinating creative work. The whole is a work of art in itself.
There are all kinds of sculptures, mosaic creations, stained glass cabinets, colorful furniture, painted carpets......
In one of the relatively spacious rooms inside, various events are organized nowadays, where music is alternated with dance, storytelling and the like. These are announced on Florence Marie's Facebook page.
An association Les Amis de la Forge has also been founded, which develops all kinds of activities to support and further develop Florence Marie's project.
images are screenprints from the video in the documentation |
Pahkaparatiisi is in English Gnarl Paradise and Gnarl stands for: a rough, knotty protuberance, especially on a tree. Just one more step and we begin to understand what it's all about: protuberance, that's an English word that means something like a knob, an outgrowth or a washout .....
The images in this article show the characteristics of the items collected in the art environment reviewed here, namely all kinds of outgrowths of trees in particular, which have a specific shape that is so appealing that, when brought together in an extensive collection, they radiate an artistic quality.
Life and works
The one who created this art environment is Mauno Suonpää, who was born in 1932 in Huittinen, a community of around 9500 inhabitants in the region Satakunta in the south-west of Finland.
He was raised in a house outside the built-up area of Huittinen, situated on a wooded area where the Gnarl Paradise would later be located and of which it is now a part.
He started working in the forest at the age of 15, first with the help of horses, later with a tractor bought in 1956.
Mauno Suonpää
Pahkaparatiisi
Suonpääntie 43
32700 Huittinen, dept West-Finland, region Satakunta, Finland
in July open every day from 12-18, in other months visits on appointment
pictures courtesy of Sophie Lepetit, from her weblog |
Loriol-sur-Drôme is a commune of around 6,600 inhabitants, situated in the Rhône valley in the south of France, between Valence and Montélimar.
In a street in the centre of this commune, not far from the town hall, there is a house with a large number of rooms, of which more than ten are lavishly decorated, as shown in the images around.
He became a painter, and he focused on only one subject: women…. Whether he followed a training course of several years to be a painter is not known.
In 1979, when Manent was in his mid-50s, he moved to Loriol, where he took up residence in the spacious house along the Grand Rue.
Settling in this house, Manent must have felt that this was his final destination, because he began to decorate the rooms he did not use for living, with all that he had collected during the previous many years
He would indeed stay there for more than 40 years, time enough to transform the interior into a special indoor art environment.
The more than ten rooms are filled with a variety of objects such as the hundreds of crucifixes in the very first image, a wall completely covered with all kinds of colorful drawings and posters, as in the image above, but also a collection of ten to twelve thousand cigar bands with special images, rare musical instruments, matchboxes, African art .....
Manent also used a wall to exhibit some of his his own paintings
In some rooms children were not allowed, because what was shown there was not suitable for them. Manet had his own ideas about the unusual and the unexpected
A very special exhibit is the wooden coffin in which he could be carried to his grave, a coffin decorated with silhouettes of women.
Max Manent passed away on October 30, 2023 at the age of 97.
Whether the coffin he had prepared was actually used at his funeral is not clear, like there also is no information about what's going to happen with the collection.