Notes About Nature – Loops out of Blue

Terhi Tolvanen Solo Exhibition  18. 8. – 20. 10. 2022

The first time I met Terhi Tolvanen was at the opening of Four Seasons ‒ Emotional Jewelry exhibition here at gallery GAo ShAn in the summer of 2019 was without knowing I had met her. I couldn’t recognise her face at the time, even though I knew her works from books, writes the exhibition curator Yi Ding.

“Towards the end of 2019 I went to SIERAAD art Fair in Amsterdam. There I met Dutch jewellery artist Ruudt Peters. I mentioned Terhi’s jewelry to him and to my great surprise he pointed out her face to me from a photo in my phone. That moment I decided to contact her and tell about my interest in her jewellery, saying that I wanted to curate an exhibition for her. Her life away from her homeland also appealed to me as a person living and working abroad.”

Currently in Beaux-Arts de Paris, there is a jewelry exhibition Végétal – L’École de la beauté by the Famous French jewelry company Chaumet. The exhibition narrative is looking at nature through the universal prism of art and beauty. Just coincidentally, having worked and lived in France for a very long time, this homecoming solo exhibition featuring Terhi’s work is also about nature. Yet her take on nature is different.

Terhi is keen to point out that imitating stones and materials and being able to craft them into jewellery have been important topics throughout the history of jewellery. “Work form non-valuable materials can become valued by people when love and skill are intensely applied to them. My works are all made for wearing. I don’t have nothing against people hanging them on the wall as a sculpture.” Tolvanen resides in France where she teaches at the Natonal School of Art and Design(ENSA) in Limoges. Her jewellery is included in the collectons of Victoria & Albert Museum in London and Musée Des Arts in Paris.

The artist and this exhibition

Terhi Tolvanen is a forceful image-thinker and constructor but also subtle colourist, the artist and photographer Irene Sema who is very favourite for Terhi’s works and contributing for this Exhibition said. She continues on the theme of this exhibition: We try to control nature around us and our human nature. Instead of dominating and forcing nature, we have the opportunity to align with it. Starting with the plants, follow their inquisitive growth, their running roots. Get caught up in the evolutionary momentum that propels these beings to get entangled in one another’s lives. If we think we already know what is out there, we will almost surely miss much of it. Eternal philosophical questions such as "What is the nature of reality", "How are we to live". Or where is the “I” or “We” in all this? Where are the borders? Inside and outside in constant exchange, in loops out of blue!'

Balance and nature

“For me making jewellery is like drawing landscapes, balancing on a light blue line of horizon. Nature is all about light, colour and rhythms in its organization and construction. There are many ways to make jewellery. My way of making is based on elements that are constructing a piece. This kind of element thinking allows me a freedom in deciding how the construction is going to be, almost to the end of the making process. The continuous dialogue between freedom and control is essential for me", describes Terhi Tolvanen.

At this exhibition, you will encounter sources of her inspiration and see how she organises and reconstructs the nature emotionally from shiny faceted stones, pearls, gold paint or reconstructed opal.

Terhi has been dreaming about a solo exhibition in Finland for a very long time. It’s important for her to show her family and friends what she has accomplished. At this exhibition, her first in Finland for fifteen years, there is a wide variety of her works shown. Some have recently been exhibited in Amsterdam.

Importantly, Terhi has made a series of 10 unique art brooches called Rannalla. This is the special edition just for Helsinki. Click for more information about her new jewelry made for this exhibition.

Full EXHIBITION LIST AND NEW JEWELRY DESCRIBED BY THE ARTIST

Alvar with Dark Blue Moss - “At a stone fair I feel like a treasure hunter, looking rather for expressive qualities in the stones than for collectability or geological values. I search for stones that make me think about water or stones that have a moss like structure.

When making rings I like to stay simple in the construction so that the stone can play the main role in the piece. The beautiful dark blue moss on this ring is a piece of azurite mineral. I like naming my pieces with persons’ names. The ring is named after Alvar Aalto, Finland´s most famous architect. In 1962 he designed the Finlandia Hall for a central location in Helsinki.

The building is covered with marble plates. These plates are famous for having caused a lot of discussion because of the stone´s durability in the Nordic climate. In my ring, the material is not real marble at all, it only looks like that. But I´m thinking of Alvar and the work he made. And I made some dark blue moss grow on a piece of Alvar-stone.” - Terhi Tolvanen

Poussées Improbables - “I am very interested in sculpture, and I like it when my work is seen sculptural. The brooch Poussées Improbables is made on purpose so that it can stand up, as a little sculpture. The border between man made and natural is faded by the flowers that grow as well on the branch as on the rectangular pedestal.” - Terhi Tolvanen

Symbiose Sympathique - “The necklace is based on my principal theme; the dialogue between man and nature. The organic is joined together with a strictly shaped rectangular block. Some smoky quartz buds are growing on both parts but somewhat shyer on the manmade shape. Together they form a whole because they wouldn´t talk enough alone.” - Terhi Tolvanen

Summer Piece - For me making jewellery is like drawing landscapes. Recently I have been busy with the notion of horizon in my work; just as one single line or as a sketch of perspective in the composition. On my necklace Summer Piece there are some flowers balancing on a light blue line of horizon, shaping a flower field in a landscape. In a natural process of decay, some flowers are not whole anymore, the moment of perfect is very short. One is wearing a landscape.

I have always been a big fan of Art Nouveau jewellery. I see in my work references to these pieces where nature, flowers, insects, and sensuous women with flowing hair are delicious in colour, composition and material.

Julie - Julie is named after the month July. In July a lot of flowers are blooming. On the ring there is a bunch of flowers in transformation from full blossom to ones already starting to fade away.

“I find pearls fascinating and a little bit difficult at the same time. They are so perfect, too perfect actually. I found a way to change that; I facet and cut them. I also found out that the deepness of the shine stays. The faceting changes the colour of darker pearls depending on the quality. From lighter to darker. These changes in colour allow me to work with a transformation in the jewellery piece. Making a composition with dark and white pearls is like working with light and shadow. " - Terhi Tolvanen