Terhi Tolvanen

Terhi Tolvanen

Moderate to Southwest Winds

August 26 - September 24, 2023

Ornamentum is thrilled to present Moderate to Southwest Winds, by Finish jewelry artist Terhi Tolvanen. The innovative artist will present a selection of new works- bold and beautiful wearable sculptures.

Moderate to Southwest Winds

I don’t mean to speak about my childhood, but when I was small my grandfather would follow the weather forecasts several times a day, and at that moment, everyone present had to stay very still. It was important for him to know what was coming as he had to travel from his summer cottage mini-island on a small boat and this could be very dangerous with heavy winds.

I think this must be the origin of my weather obsession. I check the forecast several times a day where I live in France, but also in Helsinki or Amsterdam. I imagine my family and friends having a lovely vacation day or going to pick mushrooms when it has been raining but isn’t too cold.

As I do my daily walks, which are one the favorite moments of the day as well as one my favorite working tools, I check if it is going to rain. I love the satellite precision! I check when in the morning the summer heat is due and I can get up very early to be back in time to beat the heat. The weather becomes a factor that influences my working. The light, the wind, the colors etc.

And then I think that my way of working is like the weather. A sum of circumstances at that specific moment. I’m not in complete control. I do manage to find certain stones and certain shapes and colors of wood, but I am at the mercy of chance in finding many of the materials. The starting point to many of the new works lies in materials- certain stones that I set aside for this body of work. The quartz with fantastic inclusions came from a mineral dealer from Madagascar. A father and son family business that I came to know at the Paris mineral fair. Sadly, since Covid I haven’t seen them again.

In my new work there are a lot of beads. I have never really worked with beads before so it has been quite a challenge. The fair had a tsunami of beads, and many of the materials that I normally would look for, were not there at all, so I adapt, and the resulting works are decided by the unexpected materials. The Citrines in the neckpiece titled Wild, clearly asked to point out in all different directions.

In addition to the weather, I read the Finnish newspapers on the internet every morning before walking. I am very fond of my daily rituals. I once read an article about living rock. We tend to believe that it is dead material, but it is alive as everything else- and that became Breathing Rocks- with moss or algae on them. The prasiolite in Frozen Dripping is like grapes bitten by frost, making them semi or totally transparent. The past years have been difficult for the grape farmers. They flower too early in our new weather patterns and then are destroyed by spring frosts.

Horizon is actually a portable sculpture- and to me embodies a poetic and philosophic idea- to carry ones horizon with them. Small, simple stores and observations of everyday life.

I like to think that I make sculptures when creating jewelry… or something between sculpture and jewelry, but it is important to me for them to be comfortably wearable- even when they have a size / scale that attracts attention.

Terhi Tolvanen, 2023

Currently based in the French countryside, Terhi Tolvanen was born in Helsinki, Finland (1968). Following studies at the Lahti Design Institute, Finland, and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, NL, Tolvanen earned a Master’s Degree in Jewelry at the Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, NL.

Tolvanen’s works can be found in numerous distinguished private and public collections worldwide, including the Swiss National Museum, the Victoria & Albert Museum (London, UK) the Dallas Museum of Art (TX- USA) among others.

Moderate to Southwest Winds is Terhi Tolvanen’s third exhibition with Ornamentum.

Moderate to Southwest Winds

August 26, 2023

Press Release