Mia Maljojoki: 'Explosive: Frozen Fireworks'

Artist list

Mia Maljojoki

Anger, excitement, surprise set off fireworks in your brain. The Finnish artist Mia Maljojoki’s aspires to capture such emotional moments in material form. She is a jewellery-maker which means her pieces of work are worn as close to your skin as the feelings they express.

Surprisingly she has chosen plaster as her preferred material and has developed a technique involving the use of synthetics to strengthen it, without losing its malleable qualities. Working with this material she is able to build up her pieces of jewellery layer by layer, like a diary with entries on all sorts of experiences and incidents.

There appears to be a link between colours and emotion: to see red with anger or green with envy, and Mia Maljojoki has made the most of this phenomenon. When wearing her work, vividly coloured fireworks don’t just explode in your head but around your neck as well.

Ward Schrijver
(© Galerie Rob Koudijs)