Eyes as Big as Plates 2

The ongoing photography series Eyes as Big as Plates by Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen studies personifications of nature and folkloric explanations of natural phenomena.

In their remarkable art project Eyes as Big as Plates, ongoing since 2011, the two artists Karoline Hjorth and Riitta Ikonen explore the relationship between humans and nature. To this end, they have traveled the world and created portraits of 52 people in diverging landscapes. The resulting series of photographs presents people whose age is typically over 50, wrapped in artistic, almost living sculptures made of the most diverse natural materials that Hjorth and Ikonen collected from the subjects’ surroundings: their floral, faunal, and fungal cohorts. The sensitively shot photographs open up new aesthetic worlds full of playful effortlessness that convey a strong message: We are nature!

For the Norwegian-Finnish duo, it is not just about a successful photographic image. This second volume of the series consolidates these atmospheric portraits with concise descriptions of those portrayed, who, rather than remain solely as props in the picture, present themselves and their life stories. The Field Notes section compiles further photographic material composed around the portraits. The artists offer insights into the portraits’ process of creation and provide us with the opportunity to accompany the artists on their journeys.