Antero Koskinen got his training in art in the 1990s on numerous sculpture courses arranged by Helsinki Artists’ Association and the University of Art and Design. By training, he is actually a qualified construction manager. His artistic skill grew as he began to produce works of art, and in the 1990s he became a full-time artist. Koskinen became interested in stone sculpture on the courses that he attended, and it was also something that he had become acquainted with as a young man as he followed the activities of a stone masonry company beside his home in Lammi. Koskinen felt that working stone was easy: I tried out stone masonry, and I kept on that road. I only had to see how something was done, and I could immediately do it myself. Learning when I was younger might have been a slower process, because when you’re young, you also have to acquire a sense of form and find an artistic vision.

Koskinen has used different types of stone in his works with versatility. He particularly likes the natural beauty of hard materials like diorite, dolerite and granite. Often he combines different kinds of stone and also metal with one another. Koskinen’s idiom is spare and relaxed, carefully finished and sophisticated. Some of his sculptures create an almost jewel-like impression despite their size. But he is not a purely orthodox minimalist: one can discern hints of objects ranging from human faces to aquatic creatures and natural phenomena in the organic forms of his highly abstract sculptures. The titles of the works also suggest both the observations and ruminations he has engaged in beside the sea and the original ideas behind the composition of the sculptures.

Six of Koskinen’s works are on show in the Layers exhibition: Dialogue (2002) is made of Carrara marble and diorite, At the Interface (2003) of Carrara marble, Moon Gate (2002) and Rest Mode (2005) of diorite and stainless steel; Birth Story (2005) is composed of various types of stone; Lookout (2011) is made of Vuosaari red and black marble and diorite

Artwork: Antero Koskinen, Dialogue, 2002

Photo of artwork: Vesa Aaltonen
Photo of artist: Hannele Syrjä