Heikki MARILA
1966, Finland

The Expressionist Heikki Marila (b. 1966) is one the brightest stars in contemporary Finnish painting. His most recent exhibitions have been lauded by critics. In 2011, the artist was granted the prestigious Nordic Carnegie Art Award.
In Marila’s paintings the rich material layers, the brush strokes indicating pleasure in working the rich oil texture, generous and either unbearably beautiful or unconventional colour compositions are all telltale signs of an artist who, as befits a true painter, uninhibitedly abandons himself to playing with both the material colours and the richness of the colour shades on his palette.

In the early 21st century Marila produced paintings resembling abstractions, which were based on map images of Finnish concrete suburbs. During the next phase, his motives were found in art history, in altarpieces by German renaissance masters or in Dutch 16th century flower arrangements. In his intense re-interpretations of the originals, “there is an ongoing interchange of roles between seductively beautiful and ugly enough to make you shudder, and the two attributes are constantly questioning themselves”.
What fascinates Marila in his Dutch originals is the immense skill with which the illusion of objects and materials glimmering in light has been crafted. The flowers, the rotting fruit and the skulls are associated with the concept of vanitas as symbolising the transience of all things earthly, but Marila’s paintings also express beauty and pleasure.
The roots of Marila’s art can be traced to the early 1990’s in Turku, where he studied at the Turku School of Fine Arts from 1989 to 1992.
The painting Street Life in Istanbul (1990) is among Heikki Marila’s earlier works. The street depicted in the painting is teeming with life. The human figures thronging the street are picturesquely sketched in warm yellow and orange hues, cooled by the colder blue of the shadows. The shade of the mountain in the background is reminiscent of the exquisite violet shades used by Ellen Thesleff. The unusual vertical diptych structure of the work adds to its joyous atmosphere.

Source: http://www.bukowskis.com