Sleep textile

Ilai Lehto realizes sculptural works mainly of soft and from recycled materials, mixing the traditions of fine art and textile craft and techniques. The poetics of abandoned things and the thrown away, and on the fringes of consumer society the littering that takes place interests him. Poetry is manifested in the way of using the text for outlining and deconstructing the affective side of the work. The grove often experiences it is more important to tell about your exhibitions and works with poetic verses than descriptive ones with work texts.

This is how he describes the Tampere Maja exhibition: “The important thing was to find a word, which opens in both Finnish and Estonian. A word that evokes images and attracts into the world in which I work as an artist. Unikude is a vague material. It is hard-to-perceive layers in objects that go beyond the everyday reality of the material. It is the material from which my strange, soft, hairy works beg for touch and tenderness start to develop.”

Ilai Elias Lehto (born 1988, Joensuu) is a sculptor-poet from North Karelia. He lives Kangasa and works in Tampere. Lehto has graduated with a master’s degree in visual arts From the Fine Arts Academy of the University of the Arts, sculpture teaching area 2021 and art for a master’s degree from Aalto University’s School of Arts and Design, Visual Culture and From the Contemporary Art master’s program 2018.

Contact:

Home page: www.ilaielias.com

Instagram: @ilaielias

Email: ilai.lehto@gmail.com