Heikki Marila (b. 1966 Lahti) lives and works in Turku. He ranks among the most acclaimed Finnish painters of his generation. Through both his subject matter and his viscerally expressive style, Marila’s oeuvre is closely linked to the legacy of Western painting and art history. His work is characterized by its seriality.
The theme of power in its various manifestations is a common thread running through Marila’s artistic practice. Marila paints ‘trivial’ subjects on a monumental scale and shrinks down institutions of power into miniatures.
This retrospective at the Sara Hildén Art Museum continues a series of exhibitions featuring artists represented in the Sara Hildén Foundation Collection. It highlights key stages and turning points in Marila’s career, spanning a period of thirty years, including a selection of previously unseen works.
The exhibition opens with Marila’s paintings from the 1990s, which deal with themes such as power elites, social establishments, and Finnish national identity. In the early 2000s, Marila began exploring the traditions of German church art by painting his own highly expressive interpretations of The Isenheim Altarpiece (c. 1512-16) by Matthias Grünewald (c. 1475-1528). In his later career, Marila has continued to paint Christian imagery as an expression of Western cultural heritage. His interpretations of Christian iconography propose that secularization should not result in the denial of existing chapters in the history of civilization.
Marila painted his first floral compositions soon after the turn of the millennium, drawing inspiration from the rich symbolism of 17th century Dutch still life paintings. Flowers are generally regarded as a trivial, commonplace subject in art, but Marila challenges this notion by painting them on a scale as monumental as possible. His flowers are thematically linked to ‘miasma theory’, the belief that held sway from antiquity to the late 19th century that plagues are spread by toxic odours such as rotting flowers. Marila imbues his flowers with ugly, unpleasant connotations.
Flowers have remained a prominent theme in Marila’s recent practice. On display downstairs is a series of his new floral paintings, presented alongside a selection of new works dealing with power and violence that were painted especially for this exhibition.
The paintings in the main upstairs gallery borrow their imagery from art history. Marila’s sky paintings were inspired by the exuberant celestial visions painted of the Baroque artist Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770). Jacob Wrestling with the Angel is a triptych invoking the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with God or an angel. It can alternatively be interpreted as a metaphor illustrating the artist’s struggles with his inner demons. Marila also explores the landscape genre as one of the most recognizable image archetypes in the history of painting.
For the exhibition, Tina Cavén and Ville Tanttu made a new documentary about Heikki Marila. The documentary, produced by Sara Hildén Art Museum, was filmed at the artist’s studio in 2024. Watch the 14-minute documentary here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSVDtFDjrd8&t=8s
