As a medical practitioner Terhi Hakola has witnessed life at the ordinary and at the extremes – of death, pain and fear; of hope and birth. These fundamental human experiences – and the desire to unfold what defines and gives meaning to our day-to-day existence – also fuels and motivates her art.
Using primal symbols, traditional story-telling and Scandinavian mythology, Hakola works with installation, video, animation and painting. Her recent works explore houses and homes – the spaces that come to define the narratives of our lives – and our sense of identity in relation to the material world. She plays with the tensions between the mundane and the extraordinary, the known and the ineffable, the familiar and the terrifying; here impermanence and perpetual change play as central questions. Her melancholic, emotionally engaging work creates a questioning and shifting landscape which can exhilarate and repel at the same instant. For Hakola, the creative process – going through the unknown and doubt – is an important rite of passage, which mirrors the whole of life’s experience with its potential for transformation. Her central quest is to develop work which reflects the shared human experience and creates a place for connection and possibility.
Terhi Hakola is a Finland-born artist based in Sydney. Recently she completed Master of Fine Art studies at National Art School, Sydney. She holds a Master of Art from UNSW Art and Design and a degree in medicine from the University of Kuopio, Finland. She has practiced as a GP for 20 years in Finland and Australia and exhibited regularly in the last 10 years in solo and group shows.