INTERVIEW with Laura Lappi

by Amanda Millet-Sorsa

Laura Lappi in conversation with Amanda Millet-Sorsa at her studio in Ridgewood, Queens in May 2023 prior to her works being shipped to Helsinki, Finland, for her first solo exhibition in her home country’s capital.

Laura Lappi was born and raised in Finland and completed her B.F.A. in the Netherlands in 2006 before moving to New York City, where she has lived and worked for the past 9 years. Lappi’s recent work has focused on large-scale wall sculptures made with charred wood and organized in patterns that are inspired from architectural floor plans, details, and structures of iconic historical buildings. Her first solo show, Palace Basilica in Helsinki, Finland will open at Gallery Sculptor, the Finnish Sculptor Union’s gallery in May 2023. In Finland, there are only a handful of commercial galleries, while others like this one, are artist run spaces. As a member of the Finnish Sculptor Union, artists are offered support through available gallery space, discounts on shipments for artwork, access to museums, legal advice, weekly newsletters about available opportunities, and discounts for eyewear, among other benefits. It’s a support structure for artists that is unique and rare in other parts of the world! 

AMS: You’ve been living in New York for 9 years and making different kinds of work from sculpture, installation, to video. At what point did you start making the new body of work we see here in your studio and that will be shown in Helsinki at the Gallery Sculptor?

LL: I was making more site-specific work about 10 years ago and using photography and videography as a means to document them. In New York, the issue is always the lack of space, so I must scale my work to the space I have available. 

The wall sculptures began in 2018, when I started exploring these while in residency at Yaddo. The first sketches for this kind of work were made with wood veneer strips, not wood like the ones you see here. I was cutting strips and trying to place them and transform architectural structures. Though I had never done wall works before, the idea was to make sculptures on the wall as I was figuring out how to work with the small studio I had at the time. 

As artists we often go through moments of experimentation to find new paths. What does experimentation look like for you?

I like to experiment with different materials, that’s also how this new body of work came to be. As I was experimenting with veneer strips, I didn’t want to paint them, but I wanted to oxidize the wood so it could become darker and black. At the time, it didn’t work out because the veneer started to get loose and it was all glued in. Then, I started to cover the wood strips with wood parts, thinking how do I make it black without painting–so I burned it. After a whole month of making these pieces at Yaddo with veneer, I ruined them once I got back to New York. It was disappointing, but with experimentation we should never be afraid of the mistakes made when experimenting. Often something better comes out of it. Because you must continue with the process and it takes you to a different thing that you were at first experimenting with, through different materials and ideas. I was working with video a long time ago and it’s something I’d like to come back to and experiment with again. In my show Palace Basilica at Gallery Sculptor, there will be a new video piece as well. 

Were you already working with architectural drawings and floor plans at Yaddo?

I was creating things out of my own mind and using architectural structures as my inspiration. I wasn’t really using architectural floor plans. I was using some inspiration from the beautifully preserved historical architecture at Saratoga springs, where Yaddo is located. Saratoga Springs is known for its Victorian architecture and the variety of 19th and 20th century architectural styles from Greek Revival to Italianate and Queen Anne. You can find homes there with very interesting medieval structures and decorative woodworking made with true craftsmanship. Some of them are also very spooky-looking. I wanted to use that as an inspiration for my new work. 

This past year, the works that went to my show at Firetti Contemporary in Dubai were the beginning of this series using architectural floor plans. In previous works, I was using architectural structures and details as a starting point, but I wasn’t looking into the floor plan. This began about a year ago.

Where did this interest in architectural floor plans and buildings come from?

It comes from knowing and constructing the space, and how we are relating to architecture in society because it is everywhere. The structures we see around us have this meaning and necessity. I started to get inspired by these buildings, especially the most permanent and influential ones that are often architectural masterpieces. Some of those buildings are also symbols of power, to make us feel small. 

Where do you find the architectural plans? 

Mainly by looking online. Once this exhibition is over, I want to find other sources and go deeper into different books and to different locations. I’m going to be in Italy for a one-month residency next summer so I’m looking forward to traveling to different places there to historical architectural locations. I also want to go to visit Norway to see some of the historical stave churches and Egypt to see the pyramids, and of course many other locations.

Your works are very much based on reimagined architectural floor plans of major buildings. Why are you drawn to iconic buildings like Cathedrals?

I’m drawn to important, historical, and iconic buildings and what these buildings and structures represent in our communities, since they are usually seen as the most expressive, the most permanent and the most influential, shaping the way we live and think. For example, Basilicas were present in Roman architecture and were large public buildings at the center of every town, like a courthouse, they were the most important buildings in cities. Some Basilicas were also built in private residences and those were called “palace basilicas”. Cathedrals, Basilicas, are all different so it’s not necessarily about the religion, but the religious buildings are often the most significant ones. My work is not about the religion but the architecture.

Are there specific Basilicas you’re referring to in your body of work?

I am not exactly referring to any specific buildings, because it’s more like a puzzle by mixing different floor plans and ideas, removing and cutting out elements and adding those as well. I’m looking at the blueprints as starting points and paying attention to what is typical for a Basilica as an entrance or side aisles. If you look at Cathedrals, you often look at this round structure.

Was there a particular building that moved or struck you?

It all started by looking at Norwegian stave churches from the Viking era and some traditional Finnish woodworking structures. I was mesmerized by all these wooden structures and details, and the craftsmanship behind it.

These little pieces of wood are unified by this burned charred effect giving off a soothing and mystical feeling. Could you tell us more about what this approach and technique means for you and where it comes from?

Most of the wood I’m using is recycled scrap wood from this local wood shop next door. I’m using all different wood: oak, walnut, maple, pine… What I like about the charring is that it’s a very ancient historical way of treating the material, meant to protect the wood from fire, water, and insects. It has been used a lot by carpenters and in architecture in Japan for centuries since the early 1700s. So when I found out about that technique I was fascinated, not only by how it looks, but also everything behind it. Painting was never an option for me as I just wanted to treat and transform the material in a natural way into something extraordinary. If I would have been just painting the surface, it would have been more flat. When you use charring, different wood also burns differently. Soft wood burns faster and gets more like a crocodile skin compared to hardwood. What I like about this method is that I have full control about how I’m arranging the works and conversely, when I go to charring, there isn’t that much control as it depends on the material and also the weather. If it’s nice hot weather, everything burns faster than if it’s cold weather, or a windy day, you just never know. It’s also meditative as you have to listen to the fire when it’s burning to understand what it’s doing.

It’s a part of the process where you’re connected to the elements. It’s such a luscious surface. The yakisugi/shou sugi ban technique really allows for a life in the material. You could say it’s dead, but it’s given an afterlife. The different sheens in different woods reflect light differently. It feels soft and tactile and it’s close to charcoal. 

Before I put the finishing oil, which seals the wood surface, it really is charcoal! It’s black. But for me it’s not so much about the color black but a juxtaposition of dark and bright elements and the different shades of charred surface. I am interested in exploring how light changes and influences the perception of forms in different materials, transcending physical, hard shapes, transforming them into a soft play of shadows and illumination. There is no shadow without light, light is everything and a fundamental element in both architecture and art.

I have also been inspired by the Wabi-Sabi book by Leonard Koren. This is a book I’ve read so many times. It talks about the beauty of things that are imperfect, impermanent and incomplete and how everything is in a constant motion towards nothing. You can’t control nature, which is related to yakisugi as well. You find the beauty in things that are cracked.

Are there other influences that you think about in relation to this work aside from the wabi-sabi? As in artists or writers?

I’ve been recently looking at artists that make completely black work. I’m fascinated by Pierre Soulages, the French painter, printmaker and sculptor, who is best known as “the painter of black”. The way he uses paint and makes the light reflect from the black paint, and basically everything he’s saying that is happening in his work, I see it happening in my work as well. It’s this whole thing of playing with light and shadow. His work is how he treats the black paint and how he creates these surfaces. 

I love that connection, that’s a really great point. Are there other artists that focus on black that you look at?

When I found out about Louise Nevelson’s work, I was very fascinated by it and I think my work is often compared to her work. But the only resemblance to Nevelson’s work is the monochrome surface and color black. The treatment of materials could not be more different in that I char the surface to create the color black, while she painted. Also, she found forms from found furniture objects that created the final work, while I create forms to create the final work.

Going back to the color black or the lack of color. I want to know how you understand black having spent so much time with it? What do you see in it?

I know these works are black but for me it’s not only about the color black. It’s more about the process of transforming the material, in this case wood, into something extraordinary. There are so many other tones and colors in it that it’s hard to describe it only as a black. I see shimmering, shadows, and the light reflecting on the surface so it’s not so much about the color black, but about the play of light and shadow. 

You can definitely see it has a lot of multitudes, it’s a lot more complex than just the color black. Have you ever thought about how it’s rare to see black in nature outside of black pigment obtained through soot by burning materials?

Actually one of the most mesmerizing findings of black in nature for me was during my first time in Iceland and the only thing you can see is the endless black lava fields and also when visiting the black beach in Iceland. It’s also about the transformation from one material to another. Shadows are black, and they have so many different tones of black as well. The deepest and darkest part of the shadow is called umbra in Latin, which is what I called my previous series of work. There is definitely more black in nature, for example black stones, lots of animals are black or have black in them etc.

What’s always been fascinating for me about black is we can find small instances of it in nature, on an insect for instance, but to find black in abundance you have to make something go through a chemical transformation for it to exist in a very different state through fire and energy. It has this magical transformative human-made quality to it. You can’t just encounter it so easily.

It refers to threat and danger, there is something ominous about black in nature. When something is burned, that’s how we associate it with something bad happening.

These works carry a sense of the abstract and mysticism. We are drawn to them, but don’t quite understand why. It recalls some of those iconic and important buildings that those architecture plans are of, things that exist in another world. Architects were trying to equate the Basilica, the Cathedral, to non-earthly structures. We have a lot of geometry here, there are circles that repeat themselves, arches that mirror each other, repetition of pattern, and this all exists in an abstract language in work that often serves a spiritual function like African fabrics, Nordic rugs, Cathedrals with rose windows… I was wondering what you think about when you put these together and the relationship to that mystical quality of language? 

I am thinking about places that can bring us to that meditative, peaceful state. Places where the fluid boundaries between reality and fiction are mixed. I am interested in how architecture and spatial environments influence our perceptions and the emotional charge of different places. 

When I was creating works not for a gallery space but outside, I was thinking of Gordon Matta Clark and what he was doing and how do you make something like he did in empty buildings. It was mind blowing when I learned about his work and the freedom he had to do his installations. There are installations you can visit here in New York City like the Earth Room by Walter De Maria. You can’t take pictures or talk, but you can stand still and watch and smell this peaceful sanctuary in front of you while being in the middle of Soho. With James Turell’s work and his cut-outs, called Skyspaces he is opening up  the roof out of buildings to view the sky. Suddenly, you become part of the architecture, the artwork, and nature – that’s what draws me into these pieces and to be part of the work. I’ve never seen the sun tunnels by Nancy Holt, but I think I would have the same feeling being there too. The Mark Rothko Chapel is not just the work, but it’s the whole space. I hope that one day I can take my work and really take in the architecture and the whole place, to create something in that spirit.  

How do you see these works in a space aside from a gallery? I can see how the scale is impactful as we stand before them. I get a sense of something that is greater than myself, like stepping into a sacred space.

The scale is important in my work. When the scale is bigger you get deep and into a different level than smaller work (which I’ve made), but it doesn’t have that same quality. I would like to try to make a bigger scale and play around with the space where they’re exhibited, and create more site-specific works. 

You’re preparing for your first solo show in the capital in Helsinki. Could you tell us a little more about how you came to live here in NYC? 

I fell in love with the city like so many of us, when I visited from Boston, where I was a student in 2005 as part of an exchange program for my MFA in the Netherlands. I thought one day I would really like to live here. Since I was a teenager, so many bands from New York have inspired me like The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, The New York Dolls, and the whole NY music scene from the 70s and 80s. I’d also never seen exhibitions like the show at MoMA PS1 Greater New York (2005), and I still remember so many pieces from that show, it was really mind blowing. I could never see that in Finland or the Netherlands where I was studying. 

What do you think living in NYC has allowed you to do with your work, which wasn’t possible in Finland or the Netherlands?

It’s an expensive city for artists to be in, but NYC has been pushing me in different directions as I’m surrounded by other artists that are ambitious and you can see so many amazing art shows and events, most of which only happen here. There are artists from everywhere all over the world, working in the same place, and it does something to your work. It has been good for my work. Now I have the Green card, but previously I only had the artist visa for 3 years at a time, so it always felt like one long residency. You didn’t know if this is going to continue or not, so I wanted to use the time to work as hard as possible and get somewhere before this 3 year period ends, and make the most of it.

Amanda Millet-Sorsa (US/FR/FI) is an artist, art writer, and arts worker in New York City.