Piia Maria (1975)

Piia Maria studied at the University of Art and Design in Helsinki (Finland) and at the Royal Academy of the Hague. Just like Liesje Smolders she is fascinated by skin, and she closely connects theatre-specific and autonomous sculptures. ‘Skin not only forms the outer bounds of the body; it is also the seat of one of our most important senses, the sense of touch. Damaged skin heals. Scars, wrinkles, pimples, goose flesh, sweat and its odour reflect past experiences as well as our present frame of mind and feelings. Skin protects, but also forms a gateway. It is not a hard crest but a flexible organ; it breathes and reacts to the outside world. My sculptures represent, in a sometimes absurd way, the innermost experiences and associations caused by touch. Skin is sensitive, sometimes oversensitive and the slightest touch may release strong desires. Sometimes skin is a shield that withstands and overcomes even the severest abuse. And the appearance of skin reflects time: it ages, decays and eventually dies’, says Piia.
With Drifting Space II Piia won both the jury and the audience award at Sculpture The Hague 2002 : virginally white plaster casts of Piia’s own body float in space, emerging from water that is not there. It describes an identity crisis of an artist that came from empty, untouched Finland into populous, jam-packed Netherlands. In her 2002 performance Monument plaster-covered Piia broke out of her skin, a human being liberating herself from captivity. Now, four years later, in her performance Circles she collects a second skin, as a silkworm spinning itself into a cocoon, before flying out as a butterfly.
In the autonomous textile works Little lie and 100 years dream Piia investigates connections between man and his surroundings. In Little lie a thread issues from a translucant mouth to form a white crochet torso hanging in space, evoking associations with erotic lingerie. The needlework is pure sculptured, etherical skin. The intimate crochet torso, modelled by Piia after her own body, invokes voyeuristic tendencies. The little sensual torso is not only fragile and vulnerable, but may also provokes violence. Is that the lie to which its title alludes?
100 years dream is delicate and ominous at the same time. Two wine empty glasses sit on a small shelf, as if left behind by two lovers. But closer inspection reveals blood oozing out of a wound in a translucent hand, circling around the glasses and dripping down from the shelf. The apparently serene still life has suddenly changed into the crime scene of a ‘crime passionel’

Reviews

• Beelden 2- 2004 pagina 1 (Za 01 April 2006)