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this image and the next five by Veli Granö |
The city of Espoo is Finland's second largest city after Helsinki. It has about 300,000 inhabitants and is known as a center for high technology.
Near a house in a rural and wooded area in the north of this city an impressive art environment has developed in the past year. That now already can be reported about this, has to do with the infrastructure around outsider art (ITE-art in Finnish), created in Finland thanks to the efforts of Maaseudun Sivistysliitto (the Rural Cultural Association).
Life and works
Jari Sulkala, the creator of this site, was born in the mid 1960s.
Not much is known about his early years, education or studies, except that he got a job in Espoo as a maintenance technician of technical equipment for several companies in Espoo. It was hard and tiring work, the results of which were generally hidden.
Gradually, Sulkala began to feel uneasy that nothing could be discerned from all those years of toil and he began to long for activities where that could be otherwise. And so it happened that in the spring of 2022, in his mid 50s, he quit his job, to continue his activities as a self-taught artist.
A career switch that was as surprising as it was radical.
Creating an art environment
With his technical experience and skills, he focused on transforming metal objects into artistic creations. For example, the images above show that under the igloo-like garden dome,which he created in the early months of 2023, there is a pedestal with a sculpture of a bird that is made from the parts of a broken motorcycle.
At the top of the dome there is a set of icicles from which water drips, a reference to the melting North Pole due to climate change. The bottom of the dome became a herb garden.
Before Sulkala created this dome, he already made some smaller creations, such as -in the picture above left- a diver made of metal scraps, which can sing through a sound system hidden in the cloak.
The image at the right above shows a creation depicting a bow and arrow weapon, made of a
part of a mixer as found in paint factories.
The image below depicts the first creation Sulkala made. This creation, more or less a first statement regarding the kind of creations he envisioned, is called Leaping Deer and is made from unaltered parts of a broken motorcycle, arranged and welded together in such a way as to emphasize the dynamics of the jump.
The image below shows a dinosaur skeleton.
The creation is made from the cast iron interior of an old piano. Cast iron is a difficult material to work with, but Sulkula succeeded in extracting legs, ribs and a gaping mouth from the base material in such a way that the dinosaur takes on a lively shape.
The success of this creative operation says something about Sulkala's skill in transforming an iron frame into a work of art.
If it is correct that Sulkala, who quit his job in the spring of 2022, at that moment started making the creations reviewed above, then he has managed to develop an art environment in about a year with a landmark dome and a number of impressive stand-alone sculptures.
That's a great achievement.
If Sulkala continues in this way for a few more years, something could happen that he is already hinting about, which is that the site in the (near?) future will open to the public.
Espoo then has an art environment to be proud of.
Documentation
* An article posted on the FB-account of ITE Uusimaa on July 7, 2023, written and provided with photos by Veli Granö, was the first (and until now the only) publication about Jari Sukala's project.
- I like to mention that this publication was used in preparing above post
- And then, as far as could be ascertained, the local Espoo press has not yet covered Sulkala's activities
Jari Sulkala
Art environment under development
Espoo, region Uusimaa, province South Finland, Finland
not (yet) open to the public
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