Aaron Heino established his position as one of the most interesting makers of contemporary sculpture at least by the time of his Off Topic exhibition held at the EMMA Espoo Museum of Modern Art in 2021. Heino has created a unique, recognizable style where a largely abstracted language of form is combined with the roughness of sculpted surfaces and the shine of car paint. His works are polished, elegant and often funny as well. After seeing one of his works, an aaronheino is easy to recognize.

Heino works thematically, but not by creating works related to a theme one after another before moving on to the next. Instead, works with different themes are created simultaneously. An implemented idea of form gives birth to another motif; the theme lives on and perhaps gives birth to an entirely new theme. Heino creates his works by sculpting and casting. He sculpts stone materials – classical marble and domestic granite. In his cast works he uses bronze and industrial materials, aluminium and steel. He has also made wooden sculptures and used other materials as part of his works, but not very often. The materials and studying their qualities are important to him, as is pondering on new working methods and developing them.

The works displayed inside and outside the pavilion of the Kultaranta pergola are part of the series Natural Features. The theme covers a variety of mushroom and citrus fruit-themed sculptures. In the fruit themes one may see references to the pop art of the 1960s, its colour scheme and way of elevating everyday items and things into art, particularly consumer goods. Sliced pieces of fruit on a pedestal also refer to the tradition of still life art where fruit arranged on a table are typical subjects for paintings. Within the genre, fruit still lifes involve heavy symbolics. There are symbolic elements in Aaron Heino’s fruit-themed sculptures as well, although they appear on a personal level. Heino says that his works have always been about his own life and human relationships. Heino’s larger exhibited works where organically smooth aspects of form rise dynamically  the starting points are not as obvious as they are with the sliced fruit. The form resembling the stem of a fruit found within the works nevertheless reveals that Heino’s development of the sculptural form started from the sliced or dried peel of a fruit.

Heino studied at the Art School MAA from 2001 to 2002 and at the Lahti Institute of Design and Fine Arts, Department of Sculpture from 2002 to 2006. He displayed his work for the first time in an exhibition in Häme Gallery in Lahti. In connection with his exhibition at the Espoo Museum of Modern Art – EMMA titled Off Topic an exhibition catalogue by the same name was published in the autumn of 2021. The exhibition was part of The Fine Arts Academy of Finland Prize Heino was awarded in 2019. Heino’s works are included in many Finnish collections of contemporary art. He has also made two public sculptures. Fire ceremony was unveiled at the Lahti University in 2005 and Situated was unveiled in the yard of Kylmäkoski Prison in 2013.

Artwork: Aaron Heino, Natural Feature (Toxic Series), (2018), gabro and paint

Photo of artwork: Vesa Aaltonen
Photo of artist: Pertti Kärki